Hunger
by Baked The Author
Summary: Taylor dies in the locker. She isn't too happy about this setback, or the results, but at least she can still try to be a hero… while trying not to indulge in all the tasty snacks running around. Zombie!Taylor, AU, TaylorXMulti WARNING: dark, char death, lewd
1. oh look, a warning!

**.**

 **[O::O]**

Title: **Hunger**  
By: **Baked the Author  
** Genre: **Horror/Humor  
** Rating: **STRONG M**  
Description: Taylor dies in the locker. She isn't too happy about this setback, or the results, but at least she can still try to be a hero… while trying not to indulge in all the tasty snacks running around. Zombie!Taylor, AU, TaylorXMulti WARNING: dark, char death, lewd

Pre-story AN: If you're new, **PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE CONTINUING!**

 **Okay, so this was a recent plot-bunny that my illustrious pre-reader, Skittles, thought up. No, she doesn't have an account, mainly because she can breed plot-bunnies like a ravenous hentai tentacle monster breeds hapless explorers, but has a problem putting them into word and verse.**

 **I have a feeling I'm going to regret working on this with her… or posting it, one of the two, maybe both. But I owe her a favor, so… _yeah_.**

 **The way we usually do things is: I present a chapter to her, she reads it, and tells me whether it sucks or not. Occasionally, we both miss some grammar and spelling mistakes that slip through the editing process. Additionally, if she doesn't know what fandom sandbox I'm playing around with, she immerses herself for a week or two to get an idea of what I'm harping on about.**

 **INTERFACE was my idea, but she hadn't read all of Worm by the time I posted chapter 5, so she'd been grumbling about the idea. She's caught up now, and this story was her first plot proposal to me. **

**I have a feeling it's vengeance for posting that Prologue without her express review and permission, but I owe her a story for all the help she's given me thus far, so I can't find a reason _not to_ , especially as my other grimdark story, Unforgivable, is stuck in limbo and I needed something to get the creative juices flowing for my other stories. Again, I have a feeling I'll regret agreeing to make this…**

 **Basically, this story explores what would happen if a greater undead was exposed to the Worm universe. To prepare, Skittles and I spent a day, recently, watching a marathon of zombie movies, looking up zombies and undead in pop culture and gaming, and brainstorming how to present such an idea to you, the reader, in such a way that is intended to be, at once, humorous, gruesomely horrifying, and, above all, believable from both an in-universe perspective and from the perspective of someone who is now a walking, talking, hungry corpse.**

 **The challenge was daunting, but we're made of sterner stuff than the average dynamic duo!**

 **Pizza was eaten. Arguments were had. Words were said. A keyboard was broken. Chairs were thrown. Feelings were hurt. Ceasefires were made into alliances and treaties were signed. It snowed.**

 **Behold the final result of our combined madness!**

 **Before you go on, though, there are a few more things I have to go over so there's no confusion about how things play out:**

 **Firstly, Taylor's ability here is like a dark variant of Alabaster's, in that she can rebuild her body from nearly any injury; her only weakness is if she doesn't have enough biomass to regenerate from a debilitating blow. On the other hand… well, there's a plus side to this, but you have to read about it. No spoilers!**

 **Secondly, this story probably isn't going to be very long, and I'm not going to make it a priority with three other fics on the boil. Expect sporadic updates.**

 **Thirdly, and _fuck you_ Skittles for making me write this, THIS FIC IS NOT FOR CHILDREN! If you haven't had sex yet, or have a problem with reading about gory things and/or highly questionable acts of debauchery, or if you have issues with questioning your own mortality, TURN THE FUCK AROUND RIGHT GODDAMN NOW, HIT THAT BACK BUTTON, AND _LEAVE!_ **

**There will be absolutely _sickening_ depictions of depraved acts in this story, including, but not limited to:  
detailed descriptions of death in the first person,  
drug use,  
the enslavement and rape of underage persons,  
graphic descriptions of Taylor eating people and animals,  
the violent deaths of characters you may or may not like,  
necrophilia,  
and very, _very_ vulgar language. **

**Having said that, I've done my best to pad this nuthouse-worthy scree up with as much humor as possible to soften the blows, but this story is still really fucking dark. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.**

 **Right, I think that covers everything. Now…**

 **Without *gags* further ado…**

 **Enjoy!**


	2. I can haz snacks!

**EDIT, 4/22/2018: Chapter ending re-written, see AN at the bottom.**

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 **Hunger**

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 **Chapter 1:  
Foundry**

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Dying isn't painless.

Usually, there's some obvious cause: a bullet in your head or heart killing you quick, a knife in a vital point that makes you bleed out, crushed by an eighteen wheeler against a concrete divide, falling from a great enough height that your bones shatter and become shrapnel, shredding your frail internal meats…

Sometimes, it's an infection; less obvious, but more effective and terrifying than the sudden death. A slow, methodical, unavoidable certainty, creeping through your veins, under your fingernails, beneath your eyelids, the feeling of ants worming their way through your brain as Parkinson's slowly consumes your ego, or Ebola bleeding you from within, your lungs filling with water as cancer takes you…

I'd heard of a show, in Earth Aleph, called _One Thousand Ways to Die_ , which explores all the zany possibilities, all the crazy ways that our frail bodies can fail. Sometimes it surprises me how vicarious humans are, that the idea of death brings them entertainment, but then I remember the Coliseum, and the world makes sense again, though it remains of a grey tint.

Burning sounded terrible; the flames licking away your body, inch by inch, like a living necrosis, not knowing when the next breath will be your last…

Drowning's not much better, your body involuntarily taking a breath, only to receive something it can't process, your lungs burning as the water erodes the sensitive organs and your brain starves itself… but I've never been afraid of water, a result of learning to swim at a young age, I supposed…

The idea of somehow being shredded by a wood-chipper always sounds stupid as all hell; if it's jammed, turn the machine off, _then_ go sticking your leg into the thing that eats tree stumps!

Apparently, you can be scared to death; a sort of cerebral shock, I guess. I'm sure there's a proper word for it, but I'd never been very interested in the medical lingo that tries to put all kinds of things, including death, in carefully arranged and cataloged boxes, seeing to define that which is relative, chasing shadows that are ever beyond their reach.

Even hearing my mom die over the phone that rainy night (an aborted scream, screech of metal, wet rattle while I cry out desperately for her to answer) two years ago didn't cause a sudden interest in the study most macabre. Nor did it convince me to seek shelter in the imaginary arms of a deaf and absent god. There was no point in doing either; understanding death was beyond the ken of us mere mortals, and if Jesus was coming back, it would probably be to pick up our bodies once the Endbringers were finished with us.

In a morbid, cynical way, Glaistig Uaine was more of a savior than Jesus could hope to be, what with her tendency to harvest the powers of dead capes. Hell, there were several cults dedicated to her, praising the (allegedly) insane villain as our only hope against the Endbringers; her turning aside the Simurgh was a pretty common sticking point in those cults, one which was difficult for the PRT to refute. Too bad she was locked in the Birdcage… though, given the fact that she'd turned herself in, she was probably capable of breaking out whenever she wanted.

That morbid cynicism was what was left, in the wake of events succeeding my mother's death.

My Dad, closing himself off to the world, always leaving a side of the bed empty, unable to move on. A husk of a soul in a meaty prison. Brave enough to face the world, but not enough to leave it.

My best friend, Emma, leaving my side for some inscrutable reason before committing to a campaign of terror, again, for no apparent reason than driving me toward suicide or insanity.

I read somewhere that loneliness is one of the three strongest feelings a person can experience, superseded only by empathy and love.

Knowing all three, only receiving one; for Dad was barely there, and even though I knew he still loved me in a roundabout way, I couldn't bring myself to love an empty husk of the man I once looked up to, and I couldn't exactly empathize with my tormenters. I'd been raised to abhor such behavior. It therefore surprised me, again, in a morbid and cynical way, how numb the Winslow High School administration was to my plight. Weren't more people raised to be compassionate?

Or were we all just selfish animals, only out to benefit ourselves?

Because if that's the case, it _still_ makes more sense to work together, so we all benefit. So when we die, invariably in pain, it's not so bad.

Not that any of this matters anymore, seeing as I'm lying in a freezer in the morgue.

Of all the ways I thought I could die, being eaten alive by bugs in a locker half-filled with two-week-old fermented menstrual pads and used tampons was _really_ unexpected, to say nothing of a boy, paid by my former best friend, bringing it about by shoving me into the toxic filth and locking the door.

Death's like that though. You'll never see it coming until you're in the morgue.

Yeah, that's me: part of my torso gone, my insides, which had spilled out, carefully rearranged and stitched in with all the care of someone stuffing trash into a bag, left hand gone from trying to fend off a horde of flesh eating bugs, left face eaten nearly down to the bone, exposing teeth and frayed muscle, the eye on the same side gone from the socket, my nose nearly gone as well, both my thighs, along with my calves, hollowed by maggots, to say nothing of my groin and female parts; on the whole, I'm a bloodless, half-consumed ruin…

But I'm not dead. Well, _medically_ I am. Personally, I'm still here, locked in this ruined husk.

Waiting.

If I could still feel anger, I'd probably be in a frothing rage right about now. How dare the universe cheat me in such a callous way!

But the universe _is_ callous, and ever so _beautiful,_ so I can't blame it much.

A single-minded, insane purpose, which I'm now weirdly okay with. It's not the universe's fault for being created for the sole purpose of experiencing all possibilities and probabilities.

Like God destroying themselves so they can understand themselves.

Because, in a way, I _did_ die… or saw my life flash before my eyes. I suppose it doesn't really matter which.

It was around the point a centipede crawled up inside me, tearing my hymen on its way to gnaw at my virgin cervix. I think I passed out after that, or died, or started to _really_ die, or whatever…

Because I saw things, there, in the locker, my own personal corner of Hell.

For a moment, I thought I'd finally lost my mind, but the feeling was so **WARM** and **SAFE** and **FAMILIAR**. A metronomic thrumming, running through me and everything around me; warm and wet and dark, I flexed and moved and learned and **LISTENED**.

It changed, as things do; suddenly there was roaring. A tight feeling, **PUSHING** me, **PULLING** me, and **PAIN** inside me. I can't **BREATHE** anymore! I can't **SEE** anymore!

And then…

I'm **EVERYWHERE** and **NOWHERE**. A **STAR** is born before my eyes and I **KNOW** why it exists, because all that **IS** was created so the **RIVER,** the truth behind the universe, could **UNDERSTAND** itself; gas and dust, my foot! Stars were born from **PURPOSE** , because the entire universe seeks to **UNDERSTAND** itself, **KNOW** itself, and it can't do that while inert, so it seeks out its perfect form.

It just so happens that galaxies were the perfect recycling centers for dead stars, which were galaxies themselves in miniature, taking white dwarfs and pulling them back together in the cosmic medium. Over and over and over again, an endless waltz of life and death, forever. Heat Death? Big Crunch? Pah. There's no such thing. A galactic filament flickers and slowly dies out, the leftover matter and near inert energy, over tens and hundreds of billions of years, ends up getting drawn into gravitational focal points…

There have been _countless_ Big Bangs, regional to the infinite web of rivers streaming throughout the vast halls that are the cosmos, going everywhere and coming from nowhere, truly infinite and inscrutable, above and beyond what any physicist could ever dream of. I suppose it's the closest thing one can come to the universal Truth: that nothing is permanent, but neither can anything truly die.

I see **ME**. I see myself grow up; hurry up, hurry up, I want to be a hero. But Emma has a germ in her head and it's going to kill me because she doesn't **UNDERSTAND** that she's her and I'm me and we're not made the same because that's how everything's supposed to be but it won't stop her because her Dad drinks and her Mom hits her when she doesn't do well in her modeling classes and her agent made her suck his cock but she won't tell me because she hates how sure and strong I am and it sickens her and she wants to kill me because she thinks my strength will become hers if I die and she thinks my grief makes me weak but

she's

wrong. She'll always be weak.

I see her in the alleyway. I see why Emma finally stops pretending. And I see Sophia Hess. I see Shadow Stalker.

I **UNDERSTAND** her.

I see Sophia's **PAIN**. I see her stepfather pin her down and take her and I see her cry and she turns to smoke because she wants to escape but she can only escape for a while because she has to be solid to stop others from feeling that same **PAIN**. I see the city twist her **PAIN** into **HATE** , turn her **REMORSE** into **APATHY** , and I feel her **SOUL** , the deepest and most personal part of ourselves, the piece of us that returns to the **RIVER** , crying out in agony as the **PASSENGER** warps Sophia into the very thing she hates.

Born of **CONFLICT** , it twists her, but Sophia is strong. She fights it, as much as she can.

It sickens me to watch, but I can do nothing but watch. Because if I don't watch, the pain will come back and I don't want to be in the locker anymore and it still hurts but the pain is lessening…

Sophia didn't push me into the locker…

She didn't want to; the last gasps of her **SOUL** , a final try at redemption. She didn't take Mom's flute and destroy it. Sure, she beat me, called me names, tripped me and stole my homework.

But unlike Emma, there was still a shred of **EMPATHY** in her heart.

Unlike Emma, she didn't put me in the locker. Unlike Emma, Sophia didn't destroy Mom's flute. She didn't kill me.

As I lay dying, surrounded by filth, being eaten by bottom feeders, I suppose my life, in a way, will be worth it, if Sophia can find out how to **LOVE** again.

Because that's why everything exists; it loves itself, seeks to **UNDERSTAND** itself, and, in doing so, is only too happy to go through the suffering that is **LIFE** to **KNOW** …

And then it returns to the **RIVER**.

I see the essences of so many people and beings, returning to the **RIVER** , but I'm standing on the banks of the river, my ankles in the silt, and I **KNOW** I won't follow. I _can't_ follow. I'm different. I know this without knowing. The **RIVER** speaks these things into me, and I **CHANGE**.

 **OUROBOROS. DREADNAUGHT. UNDYING.**

 **{/-\sS!mILAtE}**

 **[Error! Dissconn-]**

The **PASSENGER** , the **ADMINISTRATOR** , dies. Its remains are absorbed, assimilated, optimized.

I am **TAYLOR** , in name and behavior, but **MORE** than I was.

I am also **DREADNAUGHT**. So the **RIVER** wills and desires, so it shall **BE**.

Because the **RIVER** is flooding over, inundated with countless lives, victims of the **CONFLICT** brought by the **PASSENGERS** , creations of the **VIRUS** , the **PARASITE** ; I feel their victims, brushing against my toes, crying out in agony to dead and silent gods that have never existed except in their minds and if this continues, eventually, **ENTROPY** will triumph at last, and the **RIVER** will finally dry up. And there will only be the **PARASITE, ZION** , and it will tear away the banks of the **RIVER** , thinking it's escaping, finding one last redoubt against **FINALITY** …

…then I see what lies beneath the banks of the **RIVER** , beyond space and time and life and death, and I see **ZION'S** face contort in horror and disbelief as he **SEES IT** and everything-

 **STOPS.**

This cannot happen.

I must go back. The **RIVER** shows me how to do this, how to stop everything from ending.

So I cup my hands. I drink from the **RIVER** , knowing that my life will be worth it, my death not final or meaningless, and-

And then I see a hospital room and I'm leaving my mother and I'm crying and I'm put back in her arms and I'm drinking from her breast and part of me **UNDERSTANDS**. And I **ACCEPT** this life, warm in Mom's bosom, and fall asleep.

Then I forget, and go on with my life, happy and unknowing of the horrors and glories my future will bring.

I'm back in the locker, a cockroach chewing on my left eardrum, more bugs chewing on my optical muscles…

It still hurts, but I'm falling away.

It all fades to black, a high keening wail as my brain lets out its death cry from lack of oxygen because there's a few dozen insects eating my lungs-

Silence falls, save the continued chewing of the bugs.

I'm still in the locker, dead but not. I **understand** again.

No heartbeat. Too much damage, not enough blood anymore.

No thought. Just a **soul** in a husk.

No way to move or speak. Muscles are dead, most of my throat now occupied by a millipede, mindlessly chewing on my thyroid.

It doesn't hurt anymore.

So I wait. I watch without eyes as they cut the lock off the locker.

As Sophia, bless her, sprays me with a fire extinguisher. " _It'll kill the bugs! God, fuck, Emma you **bitch!** "_ A nice sentiment.

She fingers Emma, tries to help Dad convict her. Emma claims insanity. Therapy.

Not enough for Dad. He kills the Barnes family. He makes the cops kill him. He goes to the **river** , swimming quickly to catch up with Mom, so fast he doesn't see me.

Such a coward.

Four days is all it takes for all my bonds to be severed. Sophia is still there, but her **soul** is brighter; she won't bully again. She **understands** … not as much as I do now, in living death, but more than before. Not kind, never kind, but more gentle than she was, using compassion rather than dismissal in treating her fellow Wards, and they help her get past the grief of failing me. She has learned her lesson, through me.

I'm happy for her. I'll have to thank her for trying, once I can get up.

All the while, I spend three more days in the morgue, in a freezer, slowly getting dehydrated, the act preparing me for my pyre. They're going to cremate me. The bean counters think spending money on an orphan's burial is a waste, Dad's life insurance barely enough to pay for his.

So few people remember me now: Sophia is the only one who shows a shred of fondness. Madison, in a hateful way, as she's forced to attend therapy. Blackwell, as she waits for her trial, cursing my name.

They put Dad next to Mom. I'd follow, but I can't go yet. The **RIVER** must be dammed, its incessant flooding stemmed, or the **PARASITE** will win.

So I wait. Wait for the coroner's assistant, a closet necrophiliac, to try kissing me.

Because I know he will. I've seen it.

The **RIVER** showed me when I drank from it. Amongst other things.

I know what I must do.

 **ZION MUST JOIN THE RIVER.**

 **Only then can I finally die.**

[]

My chance comes when the coroner steps out to do paperwork in his office.

I'm joined by a neighbor, one of the Merchant's slave girls. Overdose. She went to the **river** in painful warmth. Her name was Carol Laedis. She was sixteen. She wanted to work at the ASPCA after college. She loved her dog Max, who died trying to defend her from the kidnappers. She died alone in an abandoned factory, surrounded by filth and other broken souls, after being broken though drugs and gang rape, after turning tricks on the streets for four months. She couldn't go on living, so she went back to the **river** with a needle in her neck.

Dying always hurts, no matter what anyone says. _Always_. In this case, it's a release. A distant pain as the **river** takes her into its warm waters. She's blissful as she joins the eternal currents. I feel happy for her, I suppose.

My feelings are blunted. No pain. No heartbeat. No breath. But I **am**. I exist, still.

The assistant does things to the computer, putting the security feed into a loop, making it look like he's still doing work. He walks over toward my cabinet.

' _Do it, do it, do it!'_

I'm so **_hungry_**. So **_itchy_**.

 **If I eat his flesh, fresh and raw, I'll be able to rise again**. The **river** showed me, when I drank.

He dithers, thinking about choosing the overdose victim…

"Nah," he mutters, grabbing the handle of my drawer, "Don't want to catch AIDS or something."

I get pulled out, seeing, for the first time in my undeath, a living body.

Dead bodies still have slight nerve synapses, the corpse's nerve cells using the energy released by dying tissues to propagate themselves. One last flicker of the candle, a eulogy for the soul it once contained.

Like fireworks. So pretty.

A living body is like…

…like…

…it looks _delicious_. So much life and warmth, like the universe in miniscule, microscopic miniature! So _yummy-looking_! Such complex life, just waiting to rejoin the **river**! Just a few bites and I'll be well on my way to being whole again!

It's something I've realized, lying here on this cold slab: I need to eat. To consume energy. To _feed._ If I feed, I become stronger. If I become strong enough, I can defeat the **Parasite**.

I'm _sooo hungry,_ and this necrophilic ass takes his fucking time caressing my cold cheek.

At least he rubbed my intact side, but he really needed to stop _teasing me_! I'm hungry! And so _itchy!_ I haven't moved in _days_! I want him to kiss me so _badly_ , it's maddening!

 **Kiss me, so I can _rise._**

"Too bad about your dad, honey," Derick, because that's his name, said softly, plucking at the strands of my hair with his greasy fingers; he's ugly, with acne scars, and slightly obese, which is **perfect**. More material I can work with.

He lowers his face, warm breath rippling over my cold skin, "How about you call me daddy, for a little while?"

He kisses me, _finally!_

Like Snow White, I awaken, using the very last of my strength to open my ruined mouth and hold his head in place with my right arm; my left hand isn't really there anymore. It was stuck deep in the muck, and came away when I fell out of the locker, but that's okay!

I'll have a new hand in short order!

I chomp down on his face, teeth sawing unnaturally through muscle, bone, and **ooh it _tastes soooo~ gooood~_**

Barely swallowing, I shunted the raw matter into my right arm, and crushed his spine, just beneath his skull. Derick begins to join the **river** a few seconds later, terrified, in agonizing pain as I continue taking chunks off his neck and shoulder, going though bone as easily as flesh.

He doesn't **understand** , not at first. By the time his body shudders and dies with a gurgle, he's forgiven me and dives into the **river** like a fish that's been out of water.

In a way, souls are like that. Fish out of water, happy to get tossed back in.

I kept eating; his skull comes away easily, warm tasty blood like gravy on my hands. I cracked it open to get at the brain within. Such a delicious aroma! Like buttered popcorn only better, and even tastier! Neurons pop in my mouth like fizzy rock candy, _mmmmm~_

As a happy plus, all of Derick's worldly knowledge became mine; the human anatomy became clear as day, chemistry and biology and coroner studies imprinting themselves into my still slovenly mind, helping me rebuild what was lost in the locker. My left hand reforms in a burst of black lattices, taking on my bluish-white skin tone a half second later.

My eating pace is faster after that.

After consuming most of Derick's upper body, down to the diaphragm, I'm not so itchy anymore, but still so _hungry._ Gulping down a piece of lung, which tastes a bit like plain cheesecake, I examine my naked body.

The grey of death has set in, and the scars of my autopsy mostly vanished while I assimilated Derick's flesh into my own. Still skinny. Still _weak_. ' _I need be stronger. Me fight Scion. Kill. Eat. More.'_

I'd need more brains, too, so I could think better. But at least now I _could_ think with some clarity, which was better than nothing. I keep eating.

A few more minutes pass; the human digestive system isn't all that tasty, but the reproductive system is. It's a bit like boiled eggs, with just the right amount of salt. Muscles in the thighs tastes of pork. Bone melts like taffy in my mouth, strengthening my own skeleton as I savor the sweet, savory taste of Derick's femur. The ball joints, at the tops of the humeruses and femurs, are crunchy and soft, like truffles, only tastier.

Then a black rectangle – ' _Radio. Is radio. Walkie Talkie.'_ – on Derick's pants says something. It's the security guard, asking after Derick's well-being.

Three times they ask, three times I ignore them. Eating is more important.

By the time two swirling masses of light start approaching, I'm sitting naked in Derick's hollowed out body, chewing on one of his tibia. A bit tough, what with its higher than usual density, but better than any steak I'd ever eaten while alive!

They're nearly at the door, the coroner moving faster suddenly, the other snack urging him to stop and wait.

Their hearts beat once. I'm on my feet.

The coroner's at the door, opening it. Another heartbeat and I've crossed half the room.

The door opens fully with the third beat. I see the tasty snack, the one that cut me open to check the damage, open his mouth to scream. He's shorter than me.

I didn't want him to scream, so I took a bite out of his forehead. _'Divine, oh, soo good.'_ Just one bite and it was already easier to think! I go for another bite-

Something hits me in the side of the head, and it gets harder to think for a second; I tear my attention away from Doctor Myers' tasty brains, his soul gibbering in terror and pain, and look at the other snack.

I recognized the uniform, a Brockton Bay police officer, his gun leveled at my face, heart stuttering in terror. Corporal Pedro Velez. He's a little overweight, and the bits of knowledge I'd just attained say he might have a heart attack. I saw him, as though through a thick mist, running away; Mr. Velez doesn't make the door, his heart giving out before he reaches it. But he warns the city, hoping the Protectorate can stop me as he slips away into the **river**.

That wouldn't be good. I haven't eaten my fill or beaten the **Parasite** yet!

The gun in his hand barks again; or, I _guess_ it did. I felt the sound more than heard it.

On the other hand, mother **fucker!** I'd _just_ regrown that eye! Silly snack! You shouldn't have done that!

I close with him, slam him into the wall by his neck, spraining it and breaking four ribs. His heart stutters worryingly. No! While he moans in pain, shooting me in the chest, I rip aside his protective vest and plunge my hand into his chest cavity.

Warm, fresh hearts taste like cherry-vanilla smoothies! Yummy!

 _'I better get Doctor Myers' before it cools!'_ waving my free hand in sudden anxiety, trying to figure out what to do first while holding Officer Velez's slowly cooling body, I decided not to waste the other heart while it was fresh and still sorta beating. So thinking, I toss the snack in hand over by Derick and harvest the other snack's still warm and juicy heart before dragging it into the freezer room, Dr. Myers' heart melting in my mouth, the flavor making my knees weak with pleasure.

A three course meal sounded _lovely_ right about now! ~

[]

Two bodies and twenty minutes of experimenting with my new powers later, I understood a little more about myself.

Firstly, I could make my body do virtually anything I wanted it to do, provided I consumed living or recently deceased flesh; trying one of my fellow corpses didn't go so well, or the salami slices in Derick's sandwich. Like wood chippings and moldy cheese. Yuck.

To wit, I was now possessed of a rockin' body; perky, C-cup tits, flared thighs and perfectly rounded ass, thick, dense muscle hidden beneath a nearly-bulletproof layer of skin and dense fat. A rummage through my snack's memories located the 'lost and found', and I found myself in possession of a short skirt, a little black number that wouldn't hide anything if I jumped through the air, with a tight-fitting tank top of the same color that was decorated with a white, stylized 'D'.

Pulling the shirt on, I realized that it wouldn't take much more biomass to increase my cup size to the letter in question. I also realized that killing those three wasn't bothering me much. It was probably because they were at peace, the **river** taking them into its warm embrace.

That and the knowledge of their sins in life: Myers, a widower, was addicted to cocaine, and had discreetly trained his daughter from a young age to be his personal sex slave; he'd been planning on using her to entertain his friends once she hit sixteen, make him more money to fuel his addiction.

Officer Velez, while thinking himself a good and upright person, was racist against white people, and moonlighted as a 'vigilante', which amounted to cornering young white people and torturing them to death in secluded areas, sometimes sexually. Male or female didn't matter to him, so long as he could avenge his uncle, a victim of Allfather's insanity, but Mr. Velez didn't realize that _he_ was the insane one, not until the end.

Secondly, I wasn't breathing. My heart still wasn't beating.

More than that: my entire biology didn't make sense from a medical perspective, anymore. I was, physically anyway, a densely packed conglomeration of three men and the ravaged, mildly desiccated remains of fifteen-year-old Taylor Hebert, in the form of skin, hardened muscle shored up with fat-like constructions, a skeleton that could _probably_ survive getting hit by a bus, and… the black lattices.

Remembering the details of what the **river** showed me was becoming harder the more time passed, but I was pretty sure the black lattices were its waters given physical form. With them, I could absorb, remodel and dissolve any type of biomass, living or dead. An experiment, where I cut my hand open with a scalpel, showed that I could control the lattices for an inch or so outside my body, and that they were better at absorbing dead material than eating it, evidenced by their covering Carol's body and assimilating it into mine in just two minutes.

Twelve minutes after discovering this and getting dressed, I got to work on the other residents of the freezer room, all eight of them.

By the third such act of absorption, I realized something was wrong… well, not really _wrong_ , considering my entire situation was hardly the norm by any stretch of the imagination, but… something was _off_ , I supposed.

I wasn't getting much heavier. Just… denser. I'd started with the freshest, most robust corpses, but that still meant the combined mass of six people was now part of my biomass. Yet, a check on the scale near the computer showed I was 145 pounds, rather than over 1300.

Doctor Myers' memories told me the reason: the weight of my muscles wasn't corresponding to any increase in mass, they were just becoming denser, more like carbon nanoweave fibers than biological muscle. While alive, I was 112 pounds soaking wet, so the combined act of increasing my body's density while simultaneously increasing the area my body takes up (tits, ass, legs, and ripped abs!) was the reason I'd gained only thirty-two pounds. At the same time, my body was now probably strong enough to bench five times my current density, according to the good doctor anyway.

Very useful for my future plans… too bad I couldn't assimilate the memories of a corpse, however…

Meh. I absorbed two more bodies and checked my weight again.

146.5

Those two bodies, combined, weighed 388 pounds, putting me at over 1700 in consumed biomass. Use of a tape measure was irrelevant, however; most of the mass was going straight to my tits, which were now a clear D-cup. A quick restructuring of my internal… structure… evened the changes out; I was still a D, but at least the rest of my body matched…

I moved around a bit, seeing if the extra mass would impede my movement much. They didn't have _much_ sway…

Oh, right, rigor mortis. Silly Taylor!

Good thing they didn't wobble around too much and were round as well as firm; I'd hate to have to improvise Officer Velez's combat training to account for my nicely sized and shaped melons, along with my succulent legs and glorious ass. I took the chance to run through the martial arts forms Velez knew. No issues with movement, seeing as I could also make myself as flexible as I wanted to be. Right! It was time to get out of here and hide!

There's no denying it: I'm a zombie. A really, _really_ _sexy_ zombie, but still; people would see me and think all kinds of horrors, and, much to my chagrin, those worries would be well-justified.

I eat people.

A check of a security feed, plus the knowledge from Derick on how it all worked, showed that I was the only one in the small building. There was a police cruiser further up the block, two more BBPD officers standing watch. They didn't matter at the moment. I was still learning.

Rewinding a certain camera, I watched myself tear Doctor Myers and Officer Velez apart.

I watched it again, feeling nothing but a hole where my heart should've been. I'd recycled it into the lattices when I realized I didn't need it anymore. If I wanted to move, my body responded, in defiance of all knowledge of biology.

But I wasn't worried. I was here, and could still move. Maybe it was a powers thing, or a product of drinking from the **river**.

Then I watched the video a third time. Eight seconds.

I'd killed two people in eight seconds.

After being shot in the head. _Twice._ So I was a different type of zombie than the kind you see in the movies.

A zombie queen. I hoped it wasn't contagious. If it was, I'd better not leave any of my bits lying around.

I went back to the door to the freezer room, opened it, and looked on the ground. There was a dark puddle where the pieces of my skull and brain should've been. I felt warmth emanating from it.

 _'Come back to me,'_ I thought, feeling a connection to that warmth, so much like the **river**. The puddle rippled, and then shot into my bare foot. It tingled as it seeped under my toenails and became part of me again.

Very useful powers, indeed.

I absorbed the remaining corpses, erased the security footage for the last twenty-four hours using Derick's and Doctor Myers' knowledge, destroyed the hard drive (by pulling it out of the computer, crumpling it into a ball, and eating it, just to see if I could. Platinum tastes like generic rice cakes and salt, yuck!), shoved as many clothes as I could carry into two backpacks, put on Officer Velez's boots (after washing the blood off), covered my head with a black hoodie and a matching scarf to hide my face, put one bag on my front, one on my back, and slipped out through the back door.

It was nighttime. Good. I had a lot of ground to cover.

Sooner or later, probably in the next half-hour or so, Velez is supposed to check in with the patrol car. By then, I'd be halfway across the city. Halfway to my destination, my chosen hiding place, the place Velez usually took his victims, somewhere only he and some half-mad squatters and transients knew of, an abandoned factory complex outside the city limits.

Hopefully, no one would spot me on the way.

[]

Hannah didn't know what to make of what she was seeing.

In this city, Brockton Bay, horrors were a daily thing; from the visceral to the personal, if it could happen to you, it could happen in the Bay. Sometimes, Hannah felt she'd never left the killing fields she'd grown up on, especially whenever the Empire or ABB decided to flex their muscles in the occasional rally or shootout. A show of strength, a reminder that they were still there.

As though anyone could forget either gang was in the Bay.

Also, this resulted in high mortality rates, which in turn resulted in a need for more morgues and experienced coroners. Hannah wished such measures were unnecessary, that people could live in peace in this great nation, but, well… what could she do, with the Protectorate keeping her hands tied? Some days, especially after what Stalker told her of the events at Winslow, she'd spent her sleepless nights wondering why she didn't just nuke the whole Docks, start over from the ashes.

The Birdcage was reason enough not to, her personal morality taking a backseat to self-preservation.

Seeing the absolute _carnage_ in this West Side morgue, however, really made her wonder if that nuke wasn't such a bad idea.

"Find anything, Armsmaster?" she whispered, watching one of the PRT agents shoveled up the few remains they could find of Derick Callahan, the coroner's assistant, and put him in a Hefty bag. There were blackened spots here and there on his body, same as the other two victims, a police officer and the coroner himself; necrosis, far too advanced for being dead for only two hours.

The Desert Eagle on her hip turned into an SPAS, slung over one shoulder. Whatever did this, she hoped it wasn't still around. Some of that necrotic tissue looked like _bites_ , which made Hannah think of The Siberian.

Armsmaster shook his head from where he was examining the guts of the morgue's PC, "Negative. Whoever did this was very thorough. They removed the hard drive and took a hammer to the motherboard. No fingerprints, either."

His voice sounded like he _admired_ whoever did this; Hannah didn't hold it against Colin. The poor man had a hard enough time connecting with other people as it was, so lost in his work that he saw everything in his life outside Tinkering as tiring business.

In Hannah's opinion, he needed a girlfriend, or at least a one-night stand. Anything, to remind the great big lump that he was _human_.

Unlike whatever tore through here… "That's… not good," she admitted, glancing at the empty drawers along one wall, frost framing each one from being left open, "We have thirteen corpses, ten of which are outright missing, with no possible perp or motive. Director Piggot won't be pleased."

"Sir? Ma'am?" Miss Militia turned to the Agent inspecting the body drawers; he was standing near one that had a pool of steadily coagulating blood beneath it, looking down at a Tinkertech scanner, "From what I can see, this is where it all started. The blood here is older than that of the hallway by at least twenty minutes."

Hannah walked over, careful not to disturb the blood trails, "What's the name on that drawer?"

"One Taylor Hebert, tag number 1255," the agent replied, before continuing, "It looks like Mr. Callahan was murdered first. He'd opened the drawer, looked inside, then… well, there's a few things that could cause bleeding of this magnitude," he gestured at the pool, then the trail that led to what was left of the man, and shrugged, "but I'm guessing his throat was torn out."

Armsmaster cut in, "Taylor Anne Hebert. Age: 15. Died seven days ago. Cause of death: toxic shock combined with 47% of her physical mass being consumed by various flesh eating insects, resulting in pulmonary and respiratory failure." Hannah winced, thankful she'd sprung for a light breakfast, as Colin continued in a near-robotic tone, "No current living relatives, as her father committed suicide by police four days ago, after slaughtering Alan Barnes and his family before wounding several police officers with a shotgun, necessitating his termination; evidence shows Mr. Barnes' daughter was responsible for Ms. Hebert's death, and successfully managed to plead insanity. Ms. Barnes was to serve a year in a mental health facility before receiving five years of mandatory therapy. According to filed records, Ms. Hebert was to be cremated to save money on her burial; her ashes were to be placed between her parents' caskets."

' _My God… what is this city coming to?'_ As if dealing with the gang's insanity wasn't enough. Even ordinary people weren't immune. It made Hannah sad, to know that this poor girl died in such a horrible way, all because of another girl's madness.

"Well, she's up and walking around now." Hannah's nearly cricked her neck looking back at the PRT Agent's androgynous voice; they were looking at the blood smeared on the metal slab with a tilted head, "This smear is indicative of someone moving their leg, then body. Also, the blood is thinner near where Ms. Hebert's head would've been… and there's not nearly as much as there should be…" they trailed off.

Colin coughed, but Hannah beat him to the punch; she'd seen Bonesaw's work before, and the edges of the victims looked like some of the injuries were caused by _bites_. "Are you saying Ms. Hebert is… what? A flesh-eating zombie?"

The Agent's facemask met Miss Militia's eyes, reflecting her incredulous expression, "Ma'am, I was part of the Winslow clean-up. Considering the toxic cocktail that was in that locker, combined with whatever they used on her for the autopsy, I wouldn't be surprised if that stuff accidentally created a slow-acting variant of Bonesaw's worse contagions, let alone _this_." He (the shoulders gave his gender away to Hannah) gestured at the room pointedly.

"I concur," Colin grumbled, frowning; Hannah could tell he was using his helmet for some purpose, probably to hack the morgue's servers. After a moment, he spoke up again, but quietly, "However, I don't believe this is the work of Bonesaw, or any _known_ villain. I've just accessed the main servers here, with Dragon's assistance, and the results are… disturbing."

A tinny female voice, Dragon's, elaborated from the speakers built into Armsmaster's power armor, " _The last twenty-four hours of video surveillance have been utterly erased, even from the backup caches; whoever did this, I doubt it was the late Ms. Hebert. She would've required extensive knowledge of the system's internal workings, passwords, and advanced learning in coding to erase everything so thoroughly."_ Dragon added when Hannah raised an eyebrow, the SPAS shifting to a SCAR-H with a flicker of green light.

Armsmaster nodded in agreement, saying to the PRT Agent, "We won't rule out the possible 'reanimation' angle. Make sure you file that in your report. For now, we assume we're dealing with a Stranger, possibly a Striker or Brute with a regen factor, considering the necrosis evident in the victims and the shell casings on the floor outside. Be on guard." The Agent nodded, already moving away from Hebert's drawer.

Miss Militia remembered something, from reading about the BBPD's countermeasures against robbery and kidnapping of beat cops, and spoke up, "Are any of the belt's tracking devices responding? If they still have the items, we might be able to find them."

The Agent put a hand to his helmet, muttering for a minute, then shook his head negatively, "They found all the trackers in a garbage can, three blocks away. Not even a partial fingerprint."

No further evidence was forthcoming, so the area was sanitized and reports were made. Ultimately, Hannah surmised that this monster might be a Bio-Tinker specializing in corpses; why else would all the other bodies be missing, if not for some madman's experiments? When she raised this hypothesis to the Director, she received orders to arm and advise the Wards with lethal countermeasures; they already had three adult deaths, that they knew of, and the Director wasn't interested in seeing that body count rise. No sense adding the thought of dead kids to the public's collective paranoia, never mind the ENE Protectorate's collective conscious.

Miss Militia agreed; the very _last_ thing she needed was getting a frantic radio call during a patrol, only to find Vista or Kid Win had already been victimized by… who?

Was it Miss Hebert, raised from the grave? Was she an unusual Parahuman, with a power like Alabaster's, or was she the product of a Bio-Tinker's madness? Or was it something else entirely, something they'd missed in the morgue? A product of Blasto's experiments that escaped the Bio-Tinker's laboratory, or something of Lab Rat's that they'd missed before putting the Villain in the Birdcage?

…Was it _Nilbog?_ Dragon didn't think so; the case didn't fit his MO, and there wasn't any sign Ellisburg's quarantine had been breached. Still, Director Piggot _did_ send off a request to double and triple-check the doomed city's perimeter, just in case the Goblin King had grown tired of his small fief and was attempting expansion.

Whatever the case, Hannah kept a watchful eye on her Wards, especially the now-morose Shadow Stalker, knowing that the answer may soon become clear.

She only hoped it didn't make itself known in a rain of blood.

[]

The Breckenridge-Farrier Foundry Complex, a relic of the era of major steel mills; near enough to the city for a reasonable daily commute while also far enough away for the fumes it's furnaces produced to not be a bother the local populace.

Before the arrival of Scion and the advent of Parahumans, before Tinkers and the collapse of the shipping industry, factory complexes like these provided hundreds of jobs for various skilled laborers.

In the early 1900's, these sprawling red brick buildings were common; building outward instead of upward, they were usually occupied by multiple small industrial businesses that organized under a single owner, trying to stay afloat amidst burgeoning corporate competition. Generally, these places were havens for unions and skilled workers who found themselves out of work after the fall of the monopolies.

Breckenridge-Farrier was no different, housing a group of symbiotic companies that primarily dealt in the production, refinement and sale of cast metal products; a mold would be made, usually cups or flatware, but sometimes dollhouses and decorative potpourri, and occasionally larger works, like Ferris wheels, which would then have liquid metal poured into them. This was made on-site, the raw material created in the expansive foundry that the entire building was built around.

Painters, mechanics, lawyers, secretaries, metallurgists, MTT-specialists, general laborers, on-site hospital staff, teachers and day-care personnel from all over the Bay lived and worked in the massive building, boasting over fifteen hundred employees in its heyday; a nearby railroad line, between the bay and the foundry, carried product to all 50 states and beyond, back when Brockton Bay was at peak production, in the 20's, then again in the 40's and 50's. Even the Great Depression couldn't break the Breckenridge-Farrier Foundry, the companies therein employing more general laborers than any other foundry on the East Coast, with a peak workday population of 2140 workers in the building and the nearby rail line.

As the 60's rolled around, however, amidst the cost of maintaining the aged apparatus and skilled personnel, along with the Vietnam War taking most of the young men away from the labor force, to say nothing of health concerns amongst the tenured workers and government environmentalists, Breckenridge-Farrier found itself in dire straits. Several bad business decisions, including a failed attempt at producing radiators for Ford, saw the company take its last breath. In 1968, sixty years after opening its doors, the foundry was shut down.

Several times since that year, the Brockton Bay city council made proposals to either tear the seven-million square-foot complex down, or repurpose it, either as luxury apartments, a mall, or, at one point, an alternative to the Protectorate ENE base.

In every case, the plans proved to be either logistically or financially untenable; too many problems in demolition, especially with the two basement levels of the sprawling building, nearly as expansive as the above-ground complex, flooded right up to the ground floor by rainwater and a burst water line. The tepid water was found to be highly toxic, the cost of clearing it out quadrupling the cost of any proposal for the place, including sale.

All of which resulted in the CDC condemning the steadily crumbling building in 1989. A 12-foot high chain link and barbed wire fence was erected around the property, which was then quickly ignored and forgotten by city council members and the populace alike with the death of Vikare, then the rise of Behemoth and formation of the Protectorate.

Over the resulting years, it served as a base for various groups, mainly villains; the Butcher was its first resident, causing the surrounding community to evacuate. After the Teeth left the Bay, Marquis' March briefly occupied the building before moving to greener pastures. Allfather considered making it the Empire 88's main base of operations before balking at the cost of repair and renewal, founding Medhall Corporation instead.

In the past eight years, the residents of Breckenridge-Farrier Mold Complex consisted mostly of transients, hobos, drug addicts, and a small herd of deer; much of the copper and aluminum that could be safely accessed was stripped, over these years, by salvagers trying to make a buck in these trying times. The surrounding residential areas were demolished to make way for suburban projects, and evergreen trees planted in a five-acre buffer zone around the fence, blocking out the view of the slowly crumbling structure.

Only a single service road, rarely used, provided wheeled vehicles access to the Complex. College kids experimenting with drugs or alcohol sometimes discovered the hole in the boards at the loading docks, sneaking in for a day of adventure and, occasionally, horror, as both feral dogs and deranged humans called the place home. Many were a missing person who found their end within its labyrinthine corridors and red brick walls. The BBPD occasionally attempted to clear out or re-secure the building, due to the occasional hobo wandering into the nearby suburbs, to little effect; budget cuts amid a failing economy put patrol of the sprawling complex nearly at the bottom of law enforcement's priority, as Corporal Velez discovered and subsequently exploited.

Someone of small wit had gone so far as to quote the poet Dante in white spray-paint over the loading dock nearest the train tracks, where the largest hole in the fence was located:

ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HEAR

"Gonna have to fix that typo when I get a chance," my voice is hoarse and slightly wet; a few reviews on how female vocal cords are formed should fix that. Manipulating the lattices in my throat, I try again with a voice closer to my old voice, though it's still a little hoarse, "Hi, my name's Taylor Hebert, sexiest zombie ever!"

Nodding to myself, I headed for the nearest entrance: the hole in the loading dock, where Velez usually brought his victims through. The interior of the building is cold and dark in the pre-morning light; even so, my perceptive vision shows the glittering lights of living things all over the place!

Little spiders in the darker places, ants between cracks in the flooring and in the walls, a few birds in the rafters, rats scuttling back to their burrows, a few deer on the far side of the building. Focusing on the last group as I toss my bags onto the upraised dock platform and jump in after them, it looks like they're climbing over rubble, looking for shoots of grass to eat. They'll make for a nice snack, later, once I've settled in.

Blinking my glassy eyes, I notice something else: _humans_. Delicious, nutritious humans! There's twelve in this sprawling place, all spaced out evenly; one looks like a family of three, or two people with a shorter person maybe, while the rest are more or less alone and keeping to themselves. One of the exceptions, closer to me, is a pair that seems rather close to one another, but _that_ one seems healthy, while the other…

I get a feeling of **despair** from the other. Shame, thick and cloying, ripples over my senses; it feels a little like how Carol felt, before she returned to the **river**. Frowning, I began looking for a way to get up there, picking up my bags and searching for the stairs… and thinking.

 _'Okay… I'm dead. Pity that,'_ my slightly plump lips pursed while heading down a likely-looking side passage covered in old graffiti, _'But I'm still walking around, so that makes me a zombie… Also, I understand more about death than I ever really wanted to… Poor Dad… No, can't think about that! Okay, Taylor, you're a sexy, luscious zombie-… fuck, did some of that necrophiliac's personality rub off on me?!'_

I shook my head, trying to knock the perverted ideas forming in my head aside, to no real avail, _'Damnit! Okay, that's a thing now. Maybe I'll just eat someone who's_ not _a sexual predator, see if that balances things out… but… damn, these powers are a double-edged sword,'_ I find the stairs, right as the healthy-looking one starts… starts raping the weaker person, who doesn't fight back, _'Sicko. Anyway, it looks like, if I take the knowledge of a person, some of their personality rubs off on me. Logically, then, in order to become a hero like I've always wanted, I have to eat the brains of a good person to re-align my moral compass… which would make me a villain.'_

Reaching the top of the stairs, I hear the _slap-slap-slap_ of flesh against flesh, which causes an… involuntary sensation in me. Several sensations, actually. Of the drooling variety. Both mouths. _'Looks like Officer Velez rubbed off on me a little, too. Fuck, I feel so dirty, enjoying these sounds, anticipating my next meal,'_ frowning miserably at my lot in life, I move toward the two moaning voices; well, _one_ of them is enjoying themselves. The other sounds like they're quietly begging for mercy.

Carefully dropping off my bags outside an open door (the chipped, patina-coated plaque reads DAYCARE), I look inside, the sound of rape and smell of sweat, human waste and sexual fluids strangely enticing to my palette, making my mouth water. The room looks like it used to be a classroom, broken desks amid bare cement floors and crumbled linoleum tiles. More examples of graffiti decorate the walls, some recent and alarmingly provocative, some old and mildly artistic or humorous in their quoting of classic comedy, like Richard Pryor or Monty Python.

Along the wall I'm peeking around, I see the back of a shirtless, dirty man, muscles rippling as he thrusts his hips into his now-crying victim with excited gusto; my chest begins to feel heavy with arousal, smelling all the heady hormones clogging the air while that deep, gnawing _hunger_ starts to return in force.

Creeping slowly forward between the broken desks, I clap eyes on a simple campsite. Empty cans of food, a few gallons of water, and a hole in the floor that smells strongly of human waste; even in my current state, I don't get the feeling that consuming _that_ would do me much good, even with the lattices. Just… _eww._

The rapist finishes inside the dark skinned girl chained by her neck to the wall, chuckling and whispering to his sobbing, bruised prisoner, "Such a greedy pussy, drinking up my seed. You'll be having my baby soon, my slutty nigger pet."

Her resultant cry is one of such delicious **despair** that I find myself unable to hold back much longer. My nethers gushing and mouth practically a lake, I silently remove my nice clean hoodie, as well as my tank top (no sense getting them all messy while I eat!) and stand up, unconsciously grabbing one of my tits and squeezing it, flicking a finger over the nipple; it makes me feel warmer, a nice juxtaposition to the numb hollowness of my being.

"Good morning," I purr with a grin, still calmly pleasuring myself.

He stiffens and whips his head around; unkempt beard, yellowed teeth, dirty skin. "Wh- _whoa."_ He's staring at my tits with obvious arousal.

I smile coyly, thankful for the low light that hides my true nature, and ignore the chocolate snack whimpering disjointed warnings and pleads for me to flee, "Got room for another naughty little slut? It's soo~ cold out, and my dripping pussy's feeling rather… _empty~"_ I finish with a cute pout, leaning against one of the stable desks and playing with the edge of my skirt. _'Take the bait, take the bait you fucking rapist-'_

" _Haa…_ " with a small _pop_ and a miserable, defeated sob from his slave, the guy leaves her with a slap on her perfect, upraised ass and starts stalking toward me with a rotting grin, bringing himself back to full hardness with a few strokes, "Damn, I'm lucky this morning. Two gushing sluts for breakfast."

I grinned back sultrily and let out a happy, eager laugh, lifting up my skirt and exposing my soaked pussy, going so far as to lift up my leg in invitation. ' _A little closer, just a bit closer, that's it…'_

He grabs my thigh, about to take advantage, but apparently notices how cold I am, "Ooh, you really _do_ need some warming u- _ghkk!"_

My teeth sink into his neck, making that sentence his last words.

Pulling him closer, I unthinkingly force him inside me, savoring the warmth of his stiff member in my cold body, but still retaining enough presence of mind to not eat his brain.

 _'Oh my god, I just took my own virginity! Fuck that necrophiliac, and the doctor and that cop, too! If I'm this bad now,'_ I mused while tearing his carotid artery away, riding him to the ground, slipping my hand between his ribs and exposing his juicy, delicious heart, shaking my hips and sliding up and down on his cock, which suddenly starts pissing into my inert uterus, _'I shouldn't eat any more rapists or sexual offenders. God, just eating_ three _turned me into a dirty little slut!'_

The other snack starts screaming, but I can't bring myself to care; no one can hear her anyway. The nearest human is over one hundred yards distant from here, and still asleep. Also, if the feeling the **river's** giving me is correct, the little chocolate snack in the room with me has been here for a couple weeks now. If one of the neighbors wanted to help her, they'd have done it already.

Mmm, tasty heart, oh sooo good~

His liver isn't all that great, though. Probably the meth. Still, food is food!

The screaming's turned to inane gibbering. Oh, and the pretty little snack's trying to find a way to kill herself, spare herself from getting eaten by me.

Gulping down a chunk of lung, the rapist's dick softening inside me, I say nonchalantly to the girl, "Hey! I'm not gonna eat you, so shut up! You're disturbing my breakfast." She shuts up, but keeps breathing fast, eyes wide with horrified panic while I scarf down some yummy ribs and a pancreas. Steak and pancakes, the cornerstones of a zombie's balanced breakfast!

Once done, I stood, the rapist's limp member sliding out of me like an afterthought; I'd honestly forgotten it was there, as the warm piss in my dead womb had already been assimilated by the lattices. Putting on a nice smile after wiping my mouth with a handy discarded sock, I walked over to the cringing, fearful girl; I must've looked a sight, with all the blood and viscera dripping down my chin and between my tits, but I didn't much care how horrified she was.

"What's your name?" I asked, smiling and peeling a piece of muscly flesh from where it landed on my right boob, popping it into my mouth nonchalantly.

The pretty little snack gasps in fraught terror a few times before managing to stammer out a response, "M-M-Maa-Me-Melis-s-sa?"

 _'Why doesn't Snack Melissa here sound sure – no, Taylor! This one isn't a snack! I'm going to set her free… but… I need something to offset these sexual predators' mannerisms, and eating her brain might…'_ I stare at her for a moment longer, and **see** it, _'No. She's nearly broken, traumatized, naturally submissive. If I eat her brain, I'll just become_ more _naturally submissive than I already am, and she barely has any meat on her bones. She's useless.'_

I smiled down at her, before crouching before the cowering teenager and examining her while she cringes away from me; yellowed bruises covered her body liberally, and a dribble of mingled sexual fluids runs through the dirt plastering her legs and ass. She doesn't look like she's bathed in all the time she's been here. Distantly, like it was a dream, I remember seeing her face on TV, a little before Christmas. Missing person. From the suburbs. Only thirteen years old. Poor little jailbait.

"Where do you live?" I asked, still smiling nicely.

Melissa gulped, "N-N-Near Ar-Arca-d-dia…" she seemed calmer, if still terrified of me.

"Do you know where you are?" she shook her head. "You're about two miles from Arcadia, but there are some suburbs nearby where you can get help. I'm going to set you free, now, and then I'm going to give you some clothes, and then walk you to the hole in the fence; just follow the train tracks in either direction to reach civilization. You'll have to find your way home from there, okay?"

She nodded fast, looking like she didn't believe me; oh well. I'd just have to show her my intentions were strictly honorable, no matter how much I wanted to open her like a lunchbox and scarf her down.

I reached toward the padlock on the thick leather collar she's wearing. She flinches, so I growl, "Don't move." She freezes in place. Good girl.

I almost changed my mind, a part of me wanting to keep her as my pet, but I ignored it, breaking the lock and carefully removing the collar, revealing more bruises. That way of thinking would lead to madness… well, _greater_ madness than what I'd already done. ' _Fuck, I can't believe the act of killing and eating someone got me off! I have to figure out a way to control this, or I'll never be a hero, just a people eating whore!'_

Melissa wobbles unsteadily on her legs, using one of the desks to help her stand, but still has the will to shoot a hateful glare at her rapist's corpse while I clean the blood off my hands and torso with a dirty towel. She doesn't meet my eyes while I walk her to the door, and allows me to dress her in a sweater and hoodie. Two layers of jeans and a pair of woolen socks later, she's looking much happier.

But she's still weak from her imprisonment and can barely walk, even while using the wall as support. So I swept her up in a bridal carry and made for the exit, dutifully ignoring her squeaking protests and bright blushing from contact with my full chest. It got annoying a little, as her legs and torso kept rubbing against my hard nipples, but I could deal. At least the metronomic action made me warmer inside.

It's snowing lightly outside, but Melissa was wearing thick socks and one of my extra pairs of shoes, and even while nearly naked I didn't notice the cold. Still, she could barely stand up straight, slightly bow-legged from being fucked stupid every day for weeks, let alone walk all the way home.

So thinking, I looked around a bit before shrugging and breaking an electrical pipe off a wall. After removing the wires (and eating the scrumptious black widow inhabiting the thing, which gave me the ability to make spider silk, grow an exoskeleton and create poison glands), I passed it to a pale-faced Melissa, who'd been watching me with numb shock, "There you go, Melissa: a walking stick to help you get home!"

She kept staring at me for a moment before asking, "A-are… _are you dead?"_

I nodded, frowning thoughtfully, "I think so; otherwise I wouldn't have woken up in a morgue. Don't worry though," I soothed her with a smile, when she started shaking with fear again, "I think I'm some kind of Parahuman with a weird undeath power. It's not contagious, promise!" that seemed to calm her down, but then my smile faded a bit, "Um, but could you try not telling people where you were? I'm still trying to figure out my powers, and I don't want to hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it."

"B-But… what do I say, when they ask how I got away?"

I think for a moment, and then remembered what the **river** called me. It seems almost like a dream, now, but I must remember why I'm here. The title it gave me should do, for now.

And so, I grinned again and said, "Tell them you were saved by Dreadnaught, leader of The Undying."

[]

It took me five days to systematically clear all the other humans from the Complex, but nearly a month passed before someone came to "visit".

The group of three I noticed when I first came here was a group of 'black widows', or three young women that preyed on men for shits and giggles. Their brains were even tastier than the ones I'd already consumed, and so _full_ of information!

Happily, their collective memories ended up subduing the ones of my first kill, the necrophiliac. Well, _mostly_ ; unfortunately for me, the humans that lived in this place were, by and large, half sexual predators and half Funny Farm™ brand crazy. Oh, and just about every one of them enjoyed seeing others suffer, which didn't exactly help my 'I want to be a superhero' mentality…

Three weeks since waking up in the morgue passed me by at a steady pace, alone in an expansive factory with nothing to do. I hadn't been idle, either; whenever I wasn't exploring, setting traps against intruders, painting the walls or pleasuring myself (I could give myself both male and female parts, which made the act of masturbation a _lot_ more interesting!), I tested the limits of my powers, discovering quite a lot about myself in those three weeks.

My power was of a whole other level of bullshit than anything I'd heard of, barring the big names like Glaistig Uaine, Eidolon and Butcher. The lattices inside my body were definitely the physical manifestation of the **river** , in that they both gave me intense insights into the mysteries of life and death, as well as providing me with instant understanding of any biological material they touched.

Well, except plants, for some weird reason. I wasn't complaining though; meat and brains were much tastier!

Biologic matter assimilation was only the first of my abilities; it seemed like the higher my biomass, the more benefits I'd receive from the **river's** water.

For one thing, I couldn't die. I'd tried, just to make sure; I'd slit my own throat all the way to my spine, belly flopped off the six-story tower on the south side of the building onto a pile of cinderblocks, covered myself in gasoline and lit a match (I'd been worried about that one, but it turns out I'm not very flammable anymore), and even bashed my head against a wall until my skull was pulp. Nothing I did even hurt, let alone released me from this living death.

Also, I'm fairly certain I shouldn't have eaten a couple of those hobo's brains. I think one of them might've been schizophrenic or something, to make repeated attempts at suicide seem _normal_ to me. That, or the act of dying had driven me insane… nah, it was probably the bad brains.

I didn't get hot or cold, the semiliquid material in my body merely making me clammy and lukewarm; outside temperature didn't matter anymore, my skin regenerating any damage done to it before serious side-effects, like necrosis or frostbite, set in. It was still an unhealthy shade of blue, but hey, what could I do about it? It wasn't like I could get a tan, anymore.

Temperature ignorance was fairly useful too, seeing as there was only one room with electricity and heat in the whole building, some enterprising hobo having jerry-rigged a transformer that received power from a nearby march of high-tension wires, which he then connected to a former machine shop on the second floor of the building, near the foundries. I could "breathe" the heat of that room into my body, granting me more stored energy; even so, I couldn't stay in there too long, for fear of my skin rotting…

Which was stupid of me, I realized after the second week. Any damage I sustained would regenerate within seconds.

Anyway, that hobo genius had been living in the complex for a while before I showed up, stockpiling supplies for the coming apocalypse; he seemed to think it was the Protectorate that would destroy us. I _tried_ being friendly with him, even brought him some canned food as a peace offering! But, _oh nooo,_ he decided that trying his hand at being an amateur zombie hunter was a better idea than making friends with the sexy, unkillable zombie girl who just wanted someone to talk to!

At least he kept his body in good shape for me, thank goodness! Some of those other hobos were _nasty!_

Practicing with my powers revealed how truly durable I could be; with a thought, I could adjust my cellular density between average human and living tank. It was the best way to describe it, really, that second estimation. With my density turned all the way up, I could run _through_ a cement wall and not even feel it! Of course, this was _after_ eating four deer to increase my contained biomass to a solid two-and-a-half tons, in addition to finding a wall that wasn't either load bearing or went outside. The last thing I wanted to do was draw attention.

Crazy hobos, murderous drug addicts and serial rapists were one thing; eating normal, law-abiding citizens just because they're _delicious_ was just a plain bad idea… no matter how much I _really, really_ wanted to.

The only other ability I'd been able to discover was a sort of Striker-ish power. If I pushed my lattices through my skin, I could become a walking porcupine of death! Couple that with how fast and strong I was, along with the weird side-effects of the **river** showing me events in my vicinity before and after they happen, for about a minute either way, and I was well on my way to becoming one of the most powerful Parahumans in Brockton Bay!

Or was I? A Parahuman, that is. I doubted I still had a proper brain, and then there was the whole thing with constructing lungs just so I could speak...

It was a real conundrum. One which I wasn't going to worry my little zombie head over!

I mean, really now! I'm fucking _dead!_ Being able to recreate vital organs from a metaphysical substance is the _least_ alarming thing about my whole situation!

Besides, I was supposed to be focusing on the matter at hand: killing and eating this deer!

 _'Helloooo, little deer~'_ thought I while stalking one of the grazing animals, which had become separated from the herd; it was wandering around the snowy, overgrown parking lot outside the loading dock, and I'd not eaten in two days. I was _famished_ , ' _I'm gonna eaaat yoooouuu~!'_

To wit, I lunged from the roof, caught the doe about the neck, and snapped it like a twig before my feet hit the ground!

 _'Mmm~, yummy!'_ I thought while nomming its brains; deer brains were good at grounding my sanity, for some reason, _'Maybe it's because they're closer to the **river** , like me… or maybe it's because their minds are so simple…'_

Again, super interesting stuff! Deer hearts tasted different; still delicious, though, a bit like chocolate-strawberry wafers!

My body was changed again as well; after eating those girls, I figured a less, ahem, _voluptuous_ appearance would do wonders for my self-esteem; I could feel pretty without giving myself a body that'd make every porn star in the world weep. Also, at that size, my tits got in the way while hunting.

Using my body to lure in snacks was all well and good, but… well, getting an antler in the tit, while painless, was kind of _embarrassing_ , for me, _and_ for the deer.

So, I was currently sticking to a sensible 36 C, with a nicely trimmed figure to go along with it; okay, that was an understatement. I was built like a star athlete, lithe, powerful and beautiful. My face, however, remained the same as always.

I was still Taylor, after all.

Finishing off the deer and burying the bloody snow in more snow, I skipped back over to the loading docks, completely naked and without a care in the world!

Well, I was a little lonely, and I'd already explored most of the complex. I started considering whether or not to try swimming in the fetid, toxic water in the basements, find out how deep they went… then I heard a car coming, from the service road… a car with _humans_ in it!

… _'Yay! New snacks-I mean, visitors!'_ with that thought, I put on a grin, made sure the bear traps were in all the right places, and headed further into the complex, intent on putting together a nice pot of tea and some scones for whoever decided to come visit me!

I couldn't wait to meet them!

[]

Bakuda hopped out of the van and glared up at the sign, placed outside this abandoned factory.

After leaving Cornell, she'd gathered a few minions while looking for somewhere new to settle and ply her trade; Boston was right out as a new base. She didn't want to make any deals with that slimy fucker Accord. And no way in hell was she going to New York City; putting herself in Legend's corsairs was just _stupid_.

Brockton Bay, on the other hand, had plenty of abandoned buildings, like the one before her, which would give the supervillainess plenty of space to Tinker and build up her stockpile. As an added bonus, the black-haired half-Asian woman figured she'd be able to get in good with Lung if she showed him how useful having a bombmaker on payroll would be.

Sure, she could probably take the rage dragon no problem, turn him to glass or something; but that would put her in the sights of every other Parahuman in the Bay, both hero and villain.

That was the issue with being the best: everyone wanted a piece of you. And Bakuda knew, while she was very powerful, she couldn't take on that many capes singlehandedly.

Not yet. Hence, the necessary detour to this abandoned factory.

Still… the sign above the open door was really weird, giving Bakuda a moment's pause before telling her boys to back the U-Haul carriage into the dock.

 **WELCOME TO THE FOUNDRY!  
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!  
SNACKS ARE ESPECIALLY WELCOME!  
MULTIPLE VACANCIES, INQUIRE WITHIN!**

All of that was written on a square piece of plywood in a large, friendly font with green paint.

 _'Fucking crazies,'_ Bakuda thought, grabbing a bandolier of grenades and her trusty grenade launcher; the paint on the sign looked relatively recent, and, if the news of how much the gangs around here are allowed to get away with was true, that meant whoever wrote the warning/welcoming sign was _probably_ still around and serious about the risk warning.

Suitably armed, she swept her gas-mask covered face across her minions: eight men and one woman who'd heard of her exploits and decided to throw in with Bakuda's desire to bring chaos, fear and destruction into the world. Criminals all, she'd taken them on partly for their valid credit cards and bank accounts, partly to have some human shields between her and whatever she deemed a threat, and partly for a germ of an idea that Bakuda really wanted to try: putting bombs in people's heads so she could have an army of suicide bombers!

Ahh, instilling the fear of sudden death in the populace; one of the few things Bakuda truly enjoyed.

"You, and… you," Bakuda pointed her launcher at the black girl armed with two revolvers and Murdoch, her first minion and the closest thing she had to a lieutenant, "Clear that warehouse, make sure no one's watching or loitering about, or if there's traps. If someone's hanging around, capture them if you can, kill if you can't; whoever made that sign probably knows this place better than us, so don't run off either. That'll get you killed."

Two "yes boss!"-es later and the two had climbed up into the expansive warehouse; from what Bakuda could see, it was once a place where fresh product from the steel plant would be stored before being shipped out. Now, it was an empty ruin, the floor covered in debris and graffiti swirling chaotically over the walls. Three hallways that she could see went to parts unknown. Bakuda itched to explore this place and salvage what items she could for her art, only caution in the face of the unknown holding her back.

"Hey boss, there's bear traps on the floor here!" looking over at the sudden sound of one going off, the bomb Tinker chuckled at the sight of the girl… Becky, maybe, using a stick to trigger another nearby trap; good, maybe the girl had some use beyond fucking her partners in crime.

Nodding to show she'd heard and approved, Bakuda heaved herself onto the dock herself while one of her boys pulled a metal ramp out, leaned it against the dock edge, and the unloading process began.

Checking her ammunition while case after case was unloaded and more bear traps were disarmed, Bakuda wondered what kind of paranoid fuck-wit put up a welcoming sign and then set traps that could amputate the average human's foot.

 _'Probably some insane hobo or doomsday cultist,'_ she mused as the last of her bomb crates were wheeled into the warehouse, saying to Murdoch, "Be careful disarming that shit; if the crazy fuck who set them is as paranoid as I think, there's probably more hidden under this debris." Murdoch nodded and went back to poking debris with a machete, Becky moving more carefully after Bakuda's order.

While her men started unloading the perishables and personal effects, and disarmed the remaining traps, Bakuda strode confidently through a clear path in the debris, kicking any suspicious-looking mounds to check for further traps; when she made it to the far wall and leftmost corridor, she took a closer look at the graffiti covering the walls.

Most of it looked like old gang tags, nearly covered by the black streaks flowing across the walls in a disturbing caricature of a dark river. Here and there, the vague suggestion of faces contorted in pleasure and pain made themselves known, the artist incorporating older artwork into a vast mural that took up the entire wall opposite the entrance she'd used.

Stepping back a bit and looking around in curiosity, Bakuda noticed the black waves and eddies whirled out into the hallways, disappearing in the dark gloom. _'Someone had a lot of time on their hands…'_ she mused with a small chuckle, shifting her mask's vision settings between x-ray, thermal and night vision. Nobody around.

Looking back at the mural, the Tinker noticed a small block of writing above the middle and widest passage, which led into another vast and partially-collapsed section of the factory. Moving closer, she read the words, written in a tight block only a foot high:

 **THROUGH ME YOU SHALL KNOW YOURSELF  
THROUGH ME YOU SHALL UNDERSTAND  
THROUGH ME YOU BECOME REAL  
THROUGH ME YOU TURN TO DUST  
YOU COME FROM ME  
SO YOU MAY KNOW  
ALL THE FACETS OF PAIN  
AND TO ME YOU WILL RETURN  
BRINGING WITH YOU ALL THESE HURTS  
SO YOU MIGHT SHARE THEM WITH ME  
FOR I HAVE NOTHING BUT TIME TO SPARE  
NOTHING BUT LIFE TO GIVE AND TAKE  
I AM THE TRUTH  
I AM THE LIE  
I AM DEATH  
I AM LIFE  
I AM THE RIVER, FLOWING ENDLESS, OUTSIDE TIME  
I AM THE RIVER  
I AM ETERNITY**

It made no sense to Bakuda, _'Figures the crazy person would try their hand at poetry. At least the mural's nice.'_ Glancing at the painting in question one more time, appreciating the chaos of it all, Bakuda turned back to her minions. They looked nearly done, but there was more debris to check…

"Um, excuse me?" a shy-sounding female voice off to Bakuda's left, near the only remaining passage. Bakuda whipped her head around to look, fingers gripping her launcher's handle tighter, to see the speaker.

A pale girl, dressed in an all-black getup consisting of a zip-up hoodie and short skirt with holed thigh-high stockings covering her legs, was peeking around the corner of the final corridor; Bakuda couldn't see much of her face beneath the hood, but she could see that the mystery girl had a wide mouth and a well-shaped body of pale skin that would've made the mad bomber slightly jealous, if said girl wasn't dirty as _fuck._

Bakuda gestured for her men to ignore them for now; she could handle one homeless teenaged bimbo. Turning to face the girl, who was looking between the bomber and her men with a curious frown, Bakuda spoke up, "I think you're lost, little girl," she jerked the launcher at the girl for emphasis. That might get her to stop being curious.

But then the little bimbo fucking _grinned_ , "Good one!" then she turned around and picked up… a _porcelain tea service?!_ Bakuda's mind reeled slightly at the sight of the young girl stepping cautiously out and laying the fully stocked metal tray on the ground about ten feet from the hallway's entrance, speaking in a happy voice all the while, "I'm just here to welcome you to my house! You're doing very well so far with disarming my traps; please, help yourselves to some tea as a reward for your cleverness! And maybe we can discuss your living arrangements, um, if you're planning to stay, that is!" having laid the tray down, the weird, dirty and clearly homeless Goth girl darted back to the hallway entrance, but continued to smile brightly, while Bakuda stared in confused incredulity.

 _'What in the actual fuck?'_ Out loud, Bakuda snarled, "I'm not here to drink your fucking tea and make nice with a crazy homeless slut, you stupid little bitch," the smile wavered a little; which was good, in Bakuda's opinion, the little white hoe _should_ be nervous, "Me and my gang are moving in, whether you like it or not… but, if you're good, I _might_ be inclined to take you on as entertainment." Needless to say, her inflection on the final word didn't imply karaoke nights or magic tricks.

"Oh…" weirdly to Bakuda, the girl just raised a finger and started playing with her pouting lips, "I'm guessing you are all villains, then?"

"No shit." Bakuda was about to go on, ordering the stupid bitch over to Murdoch so he could have the boys break her in, but then the little slut…

Vanished. Bakuda's mind kicked into overdrive as a black blur shot between Bradley and Kevin, both men raising their guns and looking toward the van –

CRASH!

– just in time to see the engine block get ripped out from under the hood by the little Goth bitch!

Forcing herself not to panic while Murdoch barked out a command and her people raised their weapons, Bakuda switched out the pain grenade in her launcher for a vitrification one, _'Mover: yes. Brute: also yes!'_

The little bitch jumped onto the roof of the wrecked car with a low _bwoom_ , a wide grin splitting her face as Bakuda's gang leveled their guns in the fucking bitch's direction.

 _'Naïve, idiotic slut: most definitely!'_ "FIRE!" the villainess screamed, taking aim herself.

For fifteen seconds, eighteen guns from eight people poured lead into the Goth chick that destroyed Bakuda's car, the sound echoing through the decaying factory; flesh and blood were torn from the stupid whore's body, ruining the ridiculous outfit she'd been wearing.

Once the ringing silence fell and the mystery girl collapsed onto the roof of the van… only when five seconds passed and her men (and Becky) reloaded their weapons… only then did Bakuda let out the breath she'd been holding.

"Damnit!" swore Kevin, lowering his AR slightly and frowning at the discarded engine block, "I liked that van…"

Murdoch slapped the tall man on the shoulder and chuckled, "We'll get ye another, mate. We should probably lay low, boss," he added over his shoulder to a warily approaching Bakuda, "cops might've heard that."

 _One… two… three…_

Everyone's eyes and guns were once again trained on the corpse of the cape they'd just riddled with bullets.

Or, rather, _the empty space she'd just been in_. "The _fuck?!_ " whimpered Brad, head swiveling around as the distant, disgustingly cheery voice cooed again, seemingly from all around them:

 _Who… should… I… **kill?**_

Disturbed like never before, Bakuda toggled through her mask's vision settings, using X-ray and thermal together to try and find this knock-off Alabaster while ordering her people, "Get around me!" They obeyed, forming a circle around the explosive-obsessed Tinker, guns facing outward.

 _Every motherfucker… running up the hill…_

"Quit butcherin' Rob Zombie and come out, ye fuckin' slag!" crowed Murdoch, waving his pistols about while Bakuda slowly pulled a hand grenade from her bandolier; it was a conflagration device she'd created on a whim, like napalm only harder to put out. She'd affectionately named it Greek Fire, and the suit of armor she was wearing was the only material Bakuda knew of that was immune to its flames.

And if her people got caught in the explosion? Meh. She could get new people. _If_ she survived the creepy regenerating Mover/Brute.

 _One, two, three. What should I do?_

"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck…" Charles whispered, sweeping his shotgun around, aiming at the shadows the voice was echoing from.

"Steady…" hissed Becky through her teeth, eyes flicking about before she tensed and yelped, "There!"

Everyone aimed where the dark-skinned woman was facing, including Bakuda.

The mystery cape was standing beneath the poem Bakuda'd just read, smiling widely despite her ruined clothes… glassy eyes fixed on the bomb Tinker and her gang with undisguised _hunger_ , "I get fucked up, and fuck up a **_you._** "

Only Brad got a shot off before Bakuda's vision was splattered with red, accompanied by a wet tearing.

Brief screams and more wet tearing followed, now with warm wet soaking into Bakuda's costume; her people were being slaughtered, _'Nothing for it then!'_

She pulled the pin on her fire grenade –

A hand, ice cold, wrapped like a vice around the bicep of her left arm, the one holding the grenade

– and her arm was ripped out of the socket, so sudden and with such ease that it took three seconds for the pain to come.

Bakuda performed a duet, then, her scream of horror mingling with the _FWOOM_ of the grenade she'd primed exploding some feet away, _'OH FUCK! NO NO NO NO!'_ she was about to bring up the 'explode all the things' option in her HUD menu –

"Hm. That's useful! Bye, Kendra!"

– Bakuda had just enough time to be shocked at the use of her given name when her murderer's hand simultaneously tore off her mask, ripped out her heart, and scooped her frontal lobe, skull and all, off her head.

And then there was only the **River.**

And Kendra **understood**.

She dove in.

[]

Bakuda's deadman switch was easy to deactivate; it was on a five-second timer, so that was more than enough time to **assimilate** Kendra's **passenger** , access the powers it possessed (' _Area-of-effect devices, huh? I_ guess _you could call what she did explosions, but this power can make friggin_ fields of grain! _What an unimaginative bitch…'_ ), and switched off the 'destroy everything' thingy Bakuda implanted in her own heart.

It was the only way, really; if I'd made an alliance with the foolish woman, or blessed her with the **river** and made her like myself, like I'd been thinking of doing to a deer or two, I'd have had someone to talk to…

But I'd also descend further into the promiscuity that was constantly threatening to overtake my desire to be a hero. And I couldn't have that…

 _'On the bright side,_ ' I mused, evaluating the corpses littering the floor, _'I've dealt with a major threat to public safety! Go me!'_ Sure, it meant sacrificing my favorite tank top, but I could make spider silk from the lattices. I'd just make another… once I had the time to do so.

Right now, there were more pressing matters: other than the whole _I need to eat these bodies before they get cold_ issue, which was easily addressed by tucking into the delicious visitors-turned-snacks obligingly laid out for me, there was also the slight, _very minor_ and not at _all_ pressing matter of…

…Was Bakuda wanted by the PRT? Could I get money for sending her corpse in? Oh, a smart phone! Thanks, Becky! Your pancreas sure is tasty, too!

Now that I thought about it… did I need money for anything? Hmm…

' _Well,'_ I mused while opening the phone's browser and scooping someone's thigh muscles into my mouth; I sure made a mess, here, ' _I_ could _use funds to make some area-of-effect devices… that I could then sell to the city or PRT… playground in a jar? Build a better flash-bang? Hmm…'_

Slurping down some idiot's now-lukewarm brains, I began browsing PHO for info on Bakuda… Hmm, bombed Cornell, eh? Well, I knew that already. What wasn't on the page was more important: Kendra, Bakuda, was a _psychotic sociopath_ , a bomb just waiting to go off. For so very long, she'd never lost, in either social interactions or educational achievements. Honor roll all through High School. Valedictorian.

I blamed her parents, who… well, let's just say CPS would've _crucified_ Kendra's parents if they'd caught wind of how they'd "trained" their daughter to always excel. A bullwhip at four years old. God _damn_.

Oh, but what's this on the site banner? A new Ward? Well, let's just see what I've been missing since…

…Oh.

 _Chandra, New Brockton Bay Ward, Debuts_

That hair… that figure… familiar…

The **river** speaks to me…

…Melissa.

 **[]**

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 **EDIT A/N:**

 **Skittles: Pussy Liquor?! Really?**

 **What? It's funny _and_ creepy, which is what you wanted.**

 **Skittles: …fine. It's about time you got around to cleaning up this dumpster fire as is.**

 **No, but seriously, forget what I wrote for Chapter 2 of this story. I re-read it three times before deciding to scrap that ridiculous story-line and try this one instead.**

 **Skittles: So… no Freed?**

 **Nope. Upscale will be here, eventually, but the rest… no. I'm not going to write that out, only to brutally slaughter them. Nope, we're going with Plan Q.**

 **Skittles: Uh... what about Plans B-P?**

 **Fuck those plans, they're for quitters. And oil conglomerates. Plan Q is for winners!**

 **Skittles: Aight, I'll bite. What's Plan Q?**

 **NO SPOILERS. Oh, and if you reviewed the no-longer-existent 2nd chapter, I'm sorry, but I will not be responding to any of them. I feel ashamed just for writing such a hot mess. Just keep in mind that I love you all, and am trying to improve my writing. If you liked that chapter, I'm sorry, but I'd rather not go down that road.**

 **Skittles: That's your biggest problem: not thinking things through completely. See what you get for writing nearly 20k words _in two weeks_ , ya duck?**

 **Duck?! Bitch, I'm a word-chef!**

 **Skittles: Well this fic needs more spice! And I thought I said rare, not double-rare medium! Go uncook this shit!**

 **…I'm already doing that… fuck it. Go sit in your corner and figure out how to continue _Night_ before I get testy with your pleasantly plump rump.**

 **Skittles: Fine! I'll go think about super-sexy Dark Elves, you do the zombies! *walks away with extra grumbling***

 **Anyway, until the (much more (in)sane) re-worked second chapter, Baked and Skittles, signing off.**

 **[]**

 **Up Next: Chapter 2: Cage**


	3. I'm a hero! Honest!

*chugs an entire carafe of coffee*

Okay, _whew_ , here it is everyone, the new and completely different Chapter 2! I'll respond to a few reviews in a general fashion, then we can get underway with wonderful Worm-y zombie goodness.

To those who have asked if this is a crossover with something else, it is not. Skittles and I, while aware of both _iZombie_ and _Zombie Tramp_ , did not factor either into the creation of _Hunger_.

We took one look at the synopsis for the latter and found it funny but unimaginative; Skittles read it, then told me about it. There were laughs, but zombie!Taylor isn't like… _that_. There may be similarities in plot, but these are entirely coincidental.

There's only _so many_ ways to skin an orangutan, after all.

( **Skittles** : **He's talking about writing zombie stories, people. The only thing he's ever skinned is fried chicken.** )

As for the former, we sat through the first episode; it's… alright, but we hadn't seen the show ( **or even _heard of it_** ) before this fic's publication. Neither of us watch television much, and Netflix has better zombie flicks that we pulled from. It's a Worm fic. Superheroes and shit!

For those of you who are worried, don't; there will be smut, and it will be _awesome_. It'll just take more than one chapter to get to.

B-List horror/comedy… Yeah, that's one way to put it.

Oh, and if it seems like no one's reacting appropriately to the events of this chapter, don't worry; there'll be plenty of scenes showing how everyone involved reacts to Taylor's shenanigans next chapter. Cauldron's reaction is particularly hilarious.

What else... oh, I've changed the overall diction of the story; instead of past tense, I'm trying present tense. Tell me how you like it?

Finally, this chapter was written to the accompaniment of various metal bands. Enjoy.

[]

 **A/N from Skittles: HOLY SHIT, yes. This, Baked, _this_ is what I pay you for!**

You… don't pay me. I don't get paid for this _at all_. And get out of my fridge!

 **But… cheesecake…**

…Fine. Bring me a slice.

 **[]**

 **[]**

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 **Chapter 2:  
Cage**

 **[]**

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Melissa…

 _…pyrokinetic… Breaker 4/Blaster 7/Trump 3… her costume looks like the sun's surface, exposing her shoulders and calves…_

Little Melissa triggered…

 _…an upstanding young lady, orphaned in a horrible gas explosion…_

According to the **river** , that is a lie. Melissa, or Chandra now, caused the explosion, killed her mother… who precipitated her daughter's Trigger Event. The woman received her daughter after the police finished with their questions, but Melissa's mother never loved her, never truly cared for the bright girl that became depressed after the Empire lynched her father. Melissa's mother saw her as damaged goods, decided to send her away to a home for troubled girls; a place where families sent children who'd gone astray, whether in drugs, society (gang membership), or promiscuity, it was little better than the hell I rescued her from.

When Melissa confronted her mother, the woman told her daughter, her flesh and blood, she'd never wanted children, was more concerned with her own prestige in society, and Melissa was getting in the way of that. In more words, yes, to make it seem like it was more Melissa's fault than her mother's, but that was the gist.

And then, well, _boom_.

But who found her? How did she end up in the Wards?

…the **river** speaks. _Sophia. Armsmaster._

Oh. Dear Sophia.

A small smile forms on my bloodied lips. Good, they'll be able to help each other get past their mutual horrible experiences. They will grow and blossom into the fine women I know they can be, in friendship. Possibly more…

But how did Armsmaster fit in?

…oh. Well, that's nice of him, adopting the young woman so she'd have a responsible adult in her life. I'll have to thank Dragon for pushing him to act, to do something… heroic. Ha.

 _"…hope to help clean up this city alongside my fellow Wards, who I'm becoming fast friends with…"_

Truth. Hmm… in fact, little Melissa wrote that herself! That makes me happier!

However, there's still a minor question to ask…

Has she told the PRT about me?

…she has, but only my name, and that I'd rescued her from somewhere; Melissa hasn't told them where… mainly because what I did to her rapist is still giving her nightmares. Oops.

Ah, and speaking of delicious snacks, the rest of the bodies have gone cold. A brief check of Bakuda's PHO and official PRT page reveals she doesn't have a bounty, just a Birdcage order. Meh, no skin off my nose then!

I use the lattices to siphon up all the remaining blood and viscera around me, collect the discarded weapons and Bakuda's devices, and spend the rest of my morning and early afternoon shuttling everything to my redoubt at the Foundry's center.

Also, hiding their van and U-Haul trailer in the basement. There's some weird things living in that murky, polluted water; in a way, that toxic liquid is even more dangerous to health and safety than the _locker's_ contents.

On the bright side, it's not like I can get sick and die anymore. Heh.

Still, there's some kind of ringworm-esque extremophile living down there, which has mutated into a lamprey-like creature that can burrow into and kill a full-grown man in seconds, before laying eggs in their body.

I put one in a fish tank, just in case I happen across a Bio-Tinker or scientist who's curious enough to study the horrid things.

After that… I spend the next half hour in a state of stillness, standing in the middle of the common room, my pale, oily skin lit by blue-white icicle lights as I meditate on my options, no longer perceiving the world around me.

Rather, I stand on the shore of the **river** , and gaze into its waters, seeking guidance and answers.

I have dithered long enough, and the brains of Kendra and her gang have all-but suppressed my desire for sexual gratification and murder. Mostly. I still feel the desire to find someone and keep them as a pet, but now isn't the time for pleasure. It is time to act, to use my powers for the betterment of all.

But first I must divine what threats are incipient, especially in regards to my city.

 _'Melissa hasn't gotten into much trouble yet, but that will happen… soon,'_ the **river** shows me things in eddies and whorls:

A creature, like someone took every animal on Earth and glued them together all slapdash before sticking a girl's body on top, tears across an unfamiliar city, wreaking untold destruction and spewing abominations from its many screaming mouths;

Hookwolf laughing while Hellhound bleeds out in the gutter, throat slashed by Cricket, her dogs lying dead around her, the poor girl's teammates unable to reach her in time;

Heavy rain, four glowing eyes appearing out of the dark green curtains falling from the sky, the sea rises to swallow the land, bloody froth in the tide;

A sinister creature wearing the shape of a man, his costume depicting a coiling snake, he splits in two and wreaks havoc for his own gain;

The Siberian, hands stained red, grinning at me, eagerness etched into her every feature.

 _'There will be blood,'_ I muse idly, parsing the visions shown in the **river's** water, trying to decide which threat is both most pressing and deserving of my attention.

One thing at a time. The matter between Hookwolf and Hellhound was still some ways off, two weeks at least. I don't know the snake, but he doesn't seem like a major issue at the moment, and The Siberian… well, I was planning on destroying the Nine at some point; her time will come. The rain, and the glowing eyes… _well_ , if I'd be fighting an Endbringer, I'd just need to get stronger.

I wasn't planning on losing to those mindless engines of annihilation.

Which leaves the first vision… a re-examination reveals other details: Massachusetts license plates on the cars, just before they're crushed. High-rise buildings, windows shattering as other capes try in vain to stay the beast. _Boston_.

 _'If this being is not stopped, it will cause untold destruction,'_ that much is evident, in the cries and moans of those who have returned to the **river**. Some have been killed by it. Some were there when it began. I **see** what they saw, for I am the **agent** of the **river** …

And **understand**.

 _Countless wings springing from a caricature of a woman, it's mind-flaying scream echoing all around in Theta waves, corrupting all it touches._

A scowl of hatred and loathing forms on my face, _' **The Simurgh**. This is one of the Hopekiller's little plans. A girl corrupted into becoming a fledgling Endbringer, her friends now puppets in your little game? Very well, you winged bitch...'_

The scowl becomes a hungry grin.

 _'I will **break** your little toys.'_ I would not kill them if I could help it. Oh no. Aside from the **abomination** , the others could not be held in blame. They just want to go home, to have the girl that is now a monster in every sense of the word healed, restored to the person she once was.

The former, while difficult, is possible, but beyond my current capabilities. Restoring the girl is outright impossible. The **passenger** attached to her has corrupted the girl beyond what any Parahuman or scientist could reverse; even Panacea would fail, consumed by this **abomination** , replicated _ad nauseam,_ and then… plagues.

Plagues _everywhere_. Oh, that's not good.

There was no going back to her former self, not from something like this. It, the monster this poor girl has been twisted into, is **conflict** **incarnate** and holds a hatred for all life.

Was there any way to help her? To heal her of this mutation…?

Could… could **I, Dreadnaught** , do something about this?

My eyes leave their contemplating of the muted horizon above the **river's** banks and return to gazing down at its flowing currents; the **answer** is forthcoming…

… **no.** If I give her the blessing of the **river** , I would be unable to control her; the Simurgh's manipulations, coupled with the corrupted nature of her **passenger** , are beyond my ability to remove, will continue to influence her mind and **soul** , even if she drinks from the **river**.

My lips purse in frustration. I don't want to be alone like this, on the border between life and death; on top of not having anyone to talk to, there's still the whole… _sexual frustration_ that echoes through my victims. Yes, eating Bakuda and her men have dulled this significantly, but that doesn't change the fact that sex is a fun activity.

Yet, despite the fact that **Noelle** wouldn't be averse to such activities, were I to **change** her, there's still the matter of controlling her once she's **undying** like me.

If I **change** her, she'll be _worse_ than she already is, a nigh-unstoppable destroyer of worlds that can make clones of any _thing_ she consumes, twisting the living template to suit her needs. From bacteria to complex animals, her ability to cause sorrow and death would be nearly on the level of a **parasite**. If that's not enough, her **hunger** would be greater even than mine, and she wouldn't stop until all life on Earth is extinguished.

 _'Nothing for it, then,_ ' I sigh, coming back to myself, _'Noelle must join the **river** … And that means her friends have to die as well.'_

They won't forgive me. They'd slaughter innocents, burn cities, and generally make a godawful mess in a vain attempt to satisfy their vengeance for my killing Noelle. I can't leave behind a loose end like that.

It makes me sad, but there's good people in the world, and I don't want them to suffer needlessly, not when I can do something about it.

This is it, then, my first mission, other than dealing with the **parasite, Zion** : Noelle and the Travelers must join with the **river**.

It makes me frown sadly; other than killing people to feed Noelle, they haven't _really_ done anything wrong, but… well, that's the Hopekiller for you. Manipulating otherwise good people into becoming horrendous monsters. I still have hope, however, that someday I'll have someone to share this glorious, if lonely, existence with.

 _'Maybe there's someone else out there, who'll understand and accept me for who I am_ …'

Then I blink, suddenly realizing a small problem with this mission…

 _'How am I supposed to get to Boston?!'_ wait, duh! The train tracks. With my Mover abilities, I'll be able to get there before the Sun sets!

I'd better get a move on.

[]

Boston is nice. Not like Brockton Bay, where the snow is pure and white but you're more likely to get knifed walking down the street; sure, the same thing might happen down here, but it's sunnier than the Bay, just like Emma said once after coming back from vacation with her family, before she killed me!

On top of this, no one's really paying overdue attention to me as I walk through the outskirts dressed in my costume: using the **river's** water, I've made myself a spider silk tank top, hoodie and skirt that're just like the ones Bakuda and her men destroyed, with a banner-like scarf decorated with white tassels hiding my mouth, and blue-lensed sunglasses (reinforced with the lattices, of course) covering my eyes.

I _am_ turning a few heads as I walk down a depilated street though, glancing at grimy shop windows and cars travelling around. Maybe it's the fishnet bodysuit I'm wearing under my clothes, or the Gothic 'D' on my ample chest… or the paleness of my body.

 _Or_ , I amend as someone snaps a candid picture of my side profile, it's because I'm totally smokin' hot, walking around in barely anything on a cold February evening.

I pop my chest out of my partially zipped-up hoodie a little and strike a brief pose. Five phones make camera noises. _Awesome_.

My earlier estimation on how long this would take was inaccurate; it took me thirty minutes to run from Brockton to Boston and, after walking around for two hours, despite the **river's** blessings and my eavesdropping on many a conversation, I'm no closer to finding **Noelle** than when I started. And the Sun is setting.

Well, if I don't find her today, there's always tomorrow. As far as I and the **river** know, there's no real rush, but I'm hoping to get this over with and back home before Leviathan shows up.

Looking through the wrought-iron and slightly rusty bars covering the windows of a jewelry store, I admire a few jet and onyx pieces set in gold and silver; maybe I should get a choker, or otherwise add some color to my costume?

Also, it looks like those Teeth mooks that've been following me for the last hour and a half have finally worked up the courage to approach me. Took them long enough; I mean, I'm _technically_ in their territory, plus, there's four of them and only one of… oh. Parahuman backup, _of course_ , this is the Teeth we're talking about!

Wait, that's Spree, and _wow_ that's an ugly costume.

…And Vex is watching from a distance, phone in hand.

Are they _blind_? Who does their costumes, a prodigiously intelligent raccoon? Nevermind, confrontation coming up!

On one hand, this is a good thing; I'll be able to, if everything goes well, discover where **Noelle** might be and deal with her without drawing the attention of the authorities. In, out, no problem, no Birdcage order.

But on the other hand… **I'm hungry** , and each of the four unpowered and two capes who are watching me on this suddenly empty stretch of street are absolutely _sadistic_ in their… hobbies.

Rape, torture, murder, and a wholesale disregard for the feelings of others… yes, these will make fine snacks, should they decide on stupidity and attack me. Which seems likely, given the weapons held in their hands.

They're not planning on attacking first, however. They want to know why I'm here, and, regardless of my answer, they're planning on kidnapping and keeping me for a few days as entertainment before leaving my ruined corpse in a ditch somewhere. _YAWN!_

Why are villains so _bland_ and _unimaginative?_

"Oi! Bimbo!" I ignore Spree. That choker does look _very_ nice. It'd look even better on my neck, the pendant drawing attention to my cleavage nicely. I wonder how much it costs…

"Hey, slut! I'm talkin' to you!" he makes a few clones and sends them to grab me, the unpowered guys keeping their distance and trying not to bunch up, in case I have area-effect attacks or am a Mover or Brute.

Well, they're smarter than Bakuda and her goons, I'll give them that. Though given their fashion sense, _ahem_ , that's not saying much.

Not turning from my appreciation of the nice emerald-framed onyx pendant hanging from a white velvet choker, I whip my arm around behind me, striking each of the clones in rapid succession and destroying the weak constructs. Partially-coagulated blood splatters to the ground, running over the cracks and grooves in the sidewalk and spilling into the gutter.

Oh, and my feet get wet a little. What a messy, _wasteful_ ability!

Then I look over my shoulder, my deeply hoarse and slightly wet voice echoing over the quiet street, "What do you want, Spree?" as if I can't guess…

 _That_ catches him off-guard, but only for the briefest second, "You're in Teeth territory, see? And my boys are lookin' for a good time," I can feel their eyes on my legs and ass, and my narrow waist; even with the hoodie, I'm showing a good bit of skin, "You look like someone who has fun, so how 'bout it?"

I hum, low in my throat, considering, "Mmm, nah. I'm here for business, not pleasure. How about answering a question of _mine_ instead?" I turn around fully, scarf ends twirling dramatically as I face Spree, in his _ridiculous_ getup, and the four armed mooks warily standing guard across the street, and continue politely, "I am Dreadnaught. I'm looking for a group of people, teenagers."

Spree cuts me off with a grin, _rude_ , "I wasn't _askin_ ', bitch." He creates two more clones, these ones a little tougher than the last three, one of the wallflower goons telling his buddy I'm a 'fake cape', that my destroying the clones was just a fluke.

Ugh. Why are people so _difficult?_ I press on, "Six teenagers. They might be laying low-"

Spree scoffs, gesturing; both his clones lunge at me, aiming to arrest my arms –

I let the lattices break the skin on my hands, forming two absorption spikes.

– and they grab my shoulders; at the same time, I touch exposed skin on their abs with my palms.

Both clones convulse as the **river's** water tears their insides to shreds, absorbing the bloodbags Spree has created; he watches in shock as both of the created minions shrink into my hands before disappearing.

That tasted _horrible!_ Like _turpentine_ and rotten carrots!

After shuddering at the _nasty_ taste of his power, I continue unamusedly into the shocked silence, "As I was _saying_ , these teenagers might be laying low, maybe in a less-populated residential area."

I put my hands on my waist and lean forward a little; might as well give them a show before they make a fatal mistake and attack me. Who knows, the sight of boobs might make them hesitate or rethink their lives, "Anyone know a group matching that description?" and I look pointedly at the unpowered goons, who are shifting uncomfortably even as they aim various guns at me. How cute.

Spree growls out, "Fuck you," and prepares to spawn more clones, raising a hand to signal Vex. He's going to hold me here while Vex calls for backup; once Butcher gets here…

They'll try to drag me back to their camp, break me and force me to join their group, before striking terror into Accord and the Protectorate. Nothing will stop them, not even my resistance; if I resist too much, they'll just kill me and leave my corpse on a main street as a message.

Seriously, is blatant idiocy a _requirement_ for a career in villainy?! I guess we'll be doing this the hard way, goddamnit… "Not interested."

And then I'm standing in Spree's personal space, his warm, juicy heart in my hand and a single stream of thick, dark blood squirting from a fist-sized hole in his chest.

That was easy.

Spree actually has enough time to blink at his vital organ in shock and incomprehension before crumpling to the ground, dead as a brick, the six clones he'd been preparing exploding all over the place as his power fails.

 _'Huh. That was_ too _easy,'_ I look between the corpse and the vital in my hand, ignoring the unpowered members screaming in horror and backing away, a couple wild shots ricocheting off my body, _'Why do people fear the Teeth so much? Spree's supposed to be one of their better members, and he wasn't all_ that _hard to beat…'_

I shrug. Food is food! Spree's heart goes under the scarf and down my gullet. Mmmm~, I _love_ the taste of hearts…

A fifty-caliber hollow-point round crashes into my forehead, the impact rocking my head back a few millimeters; I look at the _absolute moron_ who fired it, holding a shaking Desert Eagle in a two-handed grip and about two seconds away from filling briefs, which he _nearly_ does when the flattened copper/nickel bullet falls off my head, bounces off my right boob ( _jiggle_ ), and hits the ground with a _plink-plink-plink-k-k-k-k-k_ that's seems louder than the preceding gunshot.

The **river** tells me he's seen the Travelers. Francis Krouse's gang of Simurgh bombs. **Excellent**.

Before I can close with him and take the information from his tasty, nutritious brains, however, Vex finally gets her ass in gear and surrounds me in a dome of razor-sharp blades, "FALL BACK!" she shouts, hanging up her phone as she does so. Butcher is coming.

I whip my sunglasses off and tuck them under my boobs for safety. The Butcher's almost here.

I'll have to do this quick.

It takes a tiny fraction of a second to restructure my body into an appropriate combat form: beneath my carbon nanoweave-like skin, a chitinous layer forms; lattices form between it and my nigh-indestructible bones, providing both increased flexibility and a sort of shock absorption system; spikes of black poke through my knuckles and fingertips, my elbows and knees.

Once my lungs have mostly dissolved into more lattices, a full second has passed. I'm ready.

The barrier shatters like glass beneath my fist; I kick off the ground and appear behind my target, the holder of the secret to **Noelle's** location, who's attempting to flee.

 **I will not be denied.**

My hand wraps around his neck from behind. His blood-curdling scream tears through the sound of gunshots and Butcher-made explosions.

Pointed bits of copper slap ineffectually against my back, arms and legs; the Teeth are surprisingly good shots, not at all like their PHO thread would have me believe. _Bang! Bang!_ Goes the Butcher, teleporting closer and closer, her **pure rage** rippling over my senses; she is angry that someone's killing her people, trespassing on her territory.

I don't care. I'm not here for her _or_ her gang of fashion victims… but if they want to press the issue, I'll be more than happy to oblige.

My **hunger** won't sate itself, after all!

The lattices pierce skin and flesh, silencing the goon in my hand; they burst through his mouth and eyes, to the horror of the annoyances surrounding me (just as planned), and I sift quickly through his brain-meats to find the information I need.

 _Brookline. Prince Street, off Chestnut, third house on the left. He'd seen odd things over there, two days ago. Butcher didn't care, not her territory, not her problem._

Then an arrow crashes through the corpse in my hand, the sharp object tearing through my reinforced tank top and sternum to strike my spine, in ignorance to both physics and all my preparations, and sends me skidding eight feet down the street.

I look down at the bloodied, feathered projectile, "Ow." Not that it actually _hurts_ , but, well, theatrics.

Apparently capes use theatrics when they fight. PHO said so.

I'm a cape. They're capes ( _mostly_ ). We're fighting. This is a cape fight. QED.

It takes three seconds to absorb the corpse into the lattices, during which time Butcher snarls at me hatefully from nearly a block away, on top of a derelict house; she's shorter than me, but that bow of hers is _huge_ , as are the arrows sticking out of the deer hide quiver slung over a shoulder.

Her sense of dress is even more ridiculous than Spree's, which is to say _impressively bad_ ; was there a huge sale on knives and pseudo-Asian paraphernalia at a thrift store somewhere?

Flea market trip? EBay? Even the **river** is confused on this one.

And Butcher is not alone.

Out of an alley, a four-legged _something_ skitters into the middle of the street. It looks like someone's twisted idea of a cockroach was explained to a mentally challenged 8-year-old, who then used Play-Doh to make _this_. He's followed by more unpowered, both in front and behind me, all toting weapons and shouting war-cries.

All of them, even the unpowered, are just as badly dressed as the next. It's like I'm surrounded by rejected extras from _Waterworld_ , complete with mutant Claymation cockroach.

The cockroach is Animos, I presume. Hemmorrhagia is behind me, hiding amongst the unpowered members, and has already formed several scabby yet quite deadly weapons.

My eyes, however, are only for Butcher, who is drawing another arrow and staring into my eyes with the promise of a painful death.

The **river** speaks. I hearken.

 **PARASITE. JUVENILE. ERADICATE.**

So. Butcher is a young **parasite** who'll grow up to be just like her daddy, **Zion**.

I _suppose_ I can take a few minutes to remove this vile **thing** and its worshippers from existence.

About four seconds have passed, and I'm just standing on the sidewalk, wriggling my fingers at Butcher in greeting, whose eyes widen minutely before slamming together in a capital 'g' Glare, "Animos."

Ah. She's tried using her pain inflicting power on me, only to find I don't feel pain, so she's decided to try having Animos nullify my powers before attacking again; Hemmorrhagia and Vex will catch me in a practiced two-pronged attack, supported by the unpowered's guns (yaaaawn) before Butcher closes the distance and takes my head off.

If that doesn't work? Fill me with bullets and try again.

Not a bad plan. Maybe they'll be able to kill me? Unlikely, but I'd like to see them try.

Therefore, I let Animos' shouted blast hit me, for science of course!

Hmm… I don't _feel_ any weaker…

Lines of razor-sharp barrier appear around me, courtesy Vex of course, creating a sort-of cage; bullets zip through the gaps, doing absolutely nothing other than depleting their ammunition reserves. You'd think they'd learn.

Four knives made of blood sink into my back, not breaking either hoodie or tank top but piercing the pseudo-flesh beneath… mainly because I've allowed it; the blades are easily assimilated into the lattices.

Another arrow leaves Butcher's bow with a low _bwoom_ , aimed at my head. My left eye, actually.

Okay, _no._ I'm _really tired_ of losing and regenerating that eye. First the morgue, then one of Bakuda's people with a lucky shot as I slaughtered them, and now Butcher. No more.

I grab the arrow before it hits me, the action accompanied by a sonic _crack_ of displaced air. There. Crisis averted.

The bullets have stopped, so I take a moment to examine the arrow; huh, spatial manipulation of deployed projectiles to ensure accuracy? Bullshit. _Useful_ bullshit. I'll have to make sure that power is added to my repertoire once Butcher dies. Oh, and she makes these out of raw matter, hawk feathers for fletching and all. The _fuck_ , Void Cowboy was right; I guess Butcher really _is_ absolute bullshit.

Understandable, on the whole; she _is_ a fledgling **parasite** after all.

Oh, everyone's stopped firing? The expression on Butcher's face is an interesting mix of shock, disgust, and anger. The looks on her gang's mugs are just as shocked. I guess no one's ever stopped one of her shots before…

Still, I've let this go on long enough. The Teeth are a menace only slightly better than the Fallen and slightly less palatable than the Merchants. **Their time has come.**

The skin around my dead, glassy eyes crinkles in a smile, " **My turn**." I drop the arrow.

My kick shatters Vex's cage with a loud BANG that makes the unpowered around me stagger, the force of the blow sending a wave of air blasting up and down the street, setting off so many car alarms!

 _Weeeee-wooooo-weeeee-wooooo-_ ENCH-ENCH-ENCH-ENCH! WOOOOOOOOP! WOOOOOOOOP!

…Well, it's not the best background music for my debut cape fight, but zombie beggars can't be choosers.

Speaking of music, none of the Teeth are carrying a boom box. What kind of gang even _is_ this?!

Animos opens his mouth to scream again, but chokes when he gets _me_ down his throat. I send him to the **river** with an elbow-blow to the spine before tearing out his hindquarters and eviscerating a mook with a downward slash of my hand.

 _'Maybe they left the tunes at home. That doesn't make sense, though! Someone like Butcher has enough of a reputation that a theme song is practically_ required! _'_

The blood around me suddenly forms spikes, rising to plunge into my body. Another arrow is forthcoming.

I kick sideways against the pavement, dodging both arrow and blood-spikes, crossing the street only to kick again, this time going backward.

My elbow smashes through Hemmorrhagia's chest as I come to a stop next to her, lattices exploding from my joint and out her back, the wet sound accompanied by Butcher's rage-filled scream; hm, her power'll be useful in this fight, and later ones. I **assimilate** it, giving myself the ability to manipulate the **river's** water outside my person.

 _'In fact, that's my next order of business: finding a bad-ass theme song to play whenever I show up. But which song? Dragula? Nah, too hillbilly for me.'_

An explosion throws me sideways, before another arrow pins me by the shoulder to a brick wall. By the **river** , Butcher's powers are such _bullshit_.

I can't wa **it to assimilate her.**

"DIE DIE DIE DIE!" Each demand is accompanied by an arrow through what would be a vital point in a normal human being; heart, liver, right lung, left kidney, "FUCKING **DIE!** " and one in my forehead.

 _'Living Dead Girl? Ooh, or maybe Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums? Ehhh, nah, too edgy… My Name Is Murder sounds good, though, not to mention appropriate... Yeah, let's go with that! Thanks, Murdoch, for your encyclopedic knowledge of shitty metal music lyrics!'_

Butcher's hating green eyes meet my dead black/browns; not that I can look down, with an arrow in my head pinning me to a brick wall. She's gotten a little wet points south, as well, a side-effect of the stacking personalities in her mind that make her nearly impossible for me to read or get a valid history on, though I _do_ know more than a couple of the previous Butchers were sadists of the highest order. Hence her arousal at getting a few hits in.

 _'Oh, and I'll need a boombox. Maybe I can make one with my Tinker ability? Hmm… something to try when I get home.'_

Oh, and one of the unpowered has drawn a grenade. Incendiary. He's hopeful that Butcher's latest attack has ended me, as the explosive cost him a pretty penny and two ugly ones too.

How _precious,_ they're actually trying to kill me!

 _AS IF I HAVEN'T FUCKING TRIED ALREADY!_

" **Ha. Hahaha. Hahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHA!** " I start laughing, a wet, throaty sound that makes the unpowered hesitate and Butcher flinch before I state, quite truthfully, " **Foolish woman. _I cannot die._** " I begin sliding forward, my body squelching wetly around the arrows as I move to get off them and continue my attack.

Fast as a whip, Butcher sends two more arrows into my thighs, trying to keep me pinned; she screams at the now-pale-as-a-ghost mook, "DO IT _NOW_!"

He does. I allow it.

Phosphorous is exposed to air, igniting oxygen and hydrogen, engulfing me in an inferno which should've had me screaming in horrified pain, or killed me instantly.

It destroys ninety-three-point-eight pounds of my body's accumulated biomass before I start finding this situation unfunny.

Pulling on the abilities the **river** has given me, I start absorbing thermic energy at a faster rate to quell the flames licking away at me, then use my not-inconsiderable strength to rip my body from the wall, landing outside the cluster of arrows and _shattering_ Butcher's next shot with a punch, the backwash of the blow extinguishing the remaining flames. More razor-sharp barriers appear from Vex, trying to keep me caged; I shatter them as well.

I'm so fucking _done_ playing around with them. " **You cannot kill,** " my dead eyes meet Butcher's, all the other Teeth backing away in fear, " **what is already DEAD!** "

My fist gets an inch from her face before another fucking explosion knocks me back slightly. Then I land on one of Vex's barriers, which she's laid out over the asphalt, shredding away another hundred pounds of biomass before I can get clear.

Fucking _bitch!_ I'm going to have to eat _so many deer_ to make up for today!

Swatting another of Butcher's arrows aside with utter contempt, I tear down the street, ripping off a car door as I go; absolute _idiots_ , the lot of them! They had a chance to flee, or answer my questions without conflict, but instead Butcher's decided that _this_ is where they want to die.

I don't have so much of a problem with this. The Teeth originated in Brockton Bay, and one of that city's daughters putting them in the ground is positively poetic.

I ignore arrows and bullets, shatter barriers and rip bodies apart, all while laughing deeply in amusement at this absolutely _humorous_ show of force by one of the most feared gangs in America, one so terrible even the Triumvirate are hesitant to take them on.

The door rips through one body after another, weaving lattices in the form of wasp wings springing from my back through my hoodie and absorbing biomass as I carve my way through the Teeth toward Butcher and Vex, who are both trying their best to put me down and, in Vex's case, retreat at the same time. Their attempts only succeed in bringing a laughing cry of vindication from my lips as I butcher their men ruthlessly, a cathartic scream of joyful vengeance for all those they've sent to the **river** , who are waiting eagerly, patiently, to welcome them into its currents.

Running out of minions in arm's reach (the smarter ones have fled), I throw the blood-and-viscera-soaked car door at Vex, who ducks and lets the object bisect one of the few goons left standing. Oh, wait, that guy was running away screaming, having filled his briefs quite completely. Oops. Heh.

An arrow thuds into my right boob. A lucky bullet goes into my ear canal, flattening as it impacts the barrier within.

I laugh louder.

It'll take _far_ more than what they **or** their pathetic excuse of a gang can bring to bear, to take me down for good, and I am only _too happy_ to visit an undue helping of destruction upon their persons. It will make the world better, once the Teeth have returned to the **river**.

 _Another_ explosion, at point-blank range this time, staggers me once more, before an adamantium fist wrapped in a gauntlet of Butcher-created knives crashes into my face, tearing into skin, chitinous constructions and lattices, though my scarf and skull remain unmarred.

 **Yes.**

My leg reforms into that of an ant's, hooks Butcher's knee and pulls the joint, bringing the woman to a kneeling position on the asphalt before her danger-sense power can react, my head regenerating before she hits the ground.

 **YES.**

Another blow strikes me in the gut; she may as well punch Behemoth, for all I've increased the durability of my body since her last punch. I grab the back of her neck and force her gaze to mine. She tries to teleport away, but there's a small problem.

I've used my ability to dissolve biomass and created a small incision on the back of her knee, ignoring Butcher's durability, and, using Hemmorrhagia's power to manipulate the **river's** water outside my body, have sent thirty pounds of the divine material into Butcher's veins.

It tears through her bloodstream like a storm of bullets, drawing a ragged, horrified scream from her lips as it arrives at her brain three seconds after injection, at her Corona Pollentia and Gemma constructions, interrupting her attempt to escape-

 **{0uR$} { s$!|\/|iLaT3}**

 ** _YES!_**

-and my free hand firmly grasps her around the mouth, cutting off her scream, before I _pull_ and _twist_.

Butcher's neck breaks with a satisfyingly loud and crunchy _CRRRACK_ , her last sight that of Vex scrambling away in horror… and her own shoulder-blades.

As somebody loses their lunch, I realize my fight isn't done yet.

It hits me like a freight train, the mind of the fledgling **parasite** , clawing at my mind and **soul** , trying to find a foothold in my being; for all its efforts, its hooks find no purchase, nowhere it can thrive or survive; for, though I am **UNDYING** , I am barren of life, anathema to the predications that the Entities follow. It shrieks upon the banks of the **RIVER** before the tide rises and consumes the creature's mind, leaving me with the spoils. The **passengers**.

 **Assimilating** Butcher's abilities is easy, once the tattered fragments of the souls attached to them are tossed to the **river** ; the teleport ability, while _somewhat_ useful, would cause problems with other heroes, who'd recognize it and jump to conclusions. I don't need danger-sense, I have the fucking **river**. Reforming matter and pain infliction… yes to the former, no to the latter; again, that might confuse people, make them think _I'm_ the newest Butcher. Screw the rage state, take the durability and super-strength bits, and keep that projectile manipulation, just in case.

As for the villain's body, I toss it aside, breaking the glass door of the jewelry store I was window-shopping earlier.

I'm not eating that, might catch stupid. The guy who owns the place can have the reward, seeing as the Butcher and I just wrecked the street outside his shop, right before her dense skull broke his door…. Huh, he's still alive. Lucky, given how many bullets were just flying around.

Oh, and now Vex is staring at me, a terrified yet hopeful look in her eyes.

"What?" I snap; the little zealot's barrier trick, while annoying, is no longer useful to me; ergo, "The fight's over, go home."

She flinches, and tries, "B-Butcher?"

I scoff and crush her hopes, "No. The Butcher was foolish enough to attack me, so she is dead. I am Dreadnaught, I am myself, and I cannot die. Go home."

And I walk away, leaving the shaking woman to wet herself in the middle of the street before smartly taking my advice and bolting.

Heading into the jewelry store (ding-a-ling, goes a strip of bells on the door!), I see a pale-faced elderly man behind a counter, holding a shotgun like a lifeline and staring at Butcher's corpse in shock; smart man isn't aiming it at me.

"Good evening!" I chirp, which makes him slowly look at me in awed horror, "Just wanted to pick something out," I jerk a thumb at the window display, "you don't mind, right?"

He shakes his head rapidly the negative. YAY!

I collect the white velvet and onyx choker and put it on, admire myself in a handy mirror. It _does_ make me look good!

As I leave, I gleefully advise the now less-shaking and more confused old man, "You might want to put that gun up before the PRT gets here, sir. Oh, and… sorry about the mess. Tell them Dreadnaught said to give you the reward for this bitch," I indicate the villain's corpse on the floor, "and try not to spend it all in one place, mmm'kay?" He nods vigorously.

Smiling, I tug my hoodie sleeves a little higher on my shoulders and merrily wave goodbye, "Cool! Have a nice life, Mr. Wilson!" and, slipping on my awesome sunglasses, step back outside. What a nice man!

Oh, I hear PRT sirens coming closer.

Good, Mr. Slade Wilson won't have to run up his phone bill calling them… and the remaining members of the Teeth have fled.

Then I see the devastation: cars flipped over with some wedged in alleyways, their alarms blaring in a cacophony of ear-raping sirens, blood and guts strewn where I didn't absorb all of my kills, arrows and bullet holes and impact craters friggin _everywhere_ , several parts of the _street are on fire what._

How did that last thing even _happen?!_ There's not even any oil there, the _asphalt is on fire, oh my god, **why.**_

 _'…oops?_ ' I think weakly at seeing the severe damage my fighting the Teeth has caused, _'Maybe I overdid it a little…'_

A bright flash appears above me, followed by a man's stern voice, "Don't move!"

I look up.

Blue and white costume, neatly trimmed hair, and _oh God, the **beefcake**_.

Wait. That's Legend. And he's aiming a hand filled with light at me. Light that will, if it hits me, dissolve a good portion of my biomass before kicking off another fight.

Can't have that. I'm a hero!

Also, I don't feel like destroying Boston.

Finally, EEEEEE IT'S LEGEND!

Speaking of which, there's PRT troopers and Protectorate members arriving every second, putting out fires and screaming at me to 'Freeze!', 'Put your hands up!' and 'Get on your knees!'; a lot of contradictory orders, there.

Whatever. Legend already told me not to move, so I don't move. In fact, I've ceased breathing because _ohmygod it's LEGEND!_

The **river** prompts me with something about him and Cauldron, whatever that is, but I ignore it; a flinch at the wrong time could start another fight, one which I _probably_ won't win because Legend, and then I won't be able to get _any_ autographs!

Oh, and he's noticed that the street is on fire and is switching his gaze between me and the burning asphalt with an incredulous, questioning expression.

I take a deep breath and speak in a tone of forced calm, "I can explain…" I glance at the crackling asphalt, because _how in the fuck did that even happen_ , "… _most_ of this."

[]

My introduction to the PRT and Protectorate is… interesting, to say the least.

Once everyone settled down, which only happened after exhaustive repetition of the understandable queries _are you a villain_ and _why is the street on fire just why_ , I calmly and evenly explained everything that'd happened, from Spree and his gang accosting me to my defeating Butcher. _Then_ I had to prove that I'm _not_ the latest iteration of Butcher, which I was able to prove with Mr. Wilson's help.

I'll have to get him a nicely-arranged gift basket for his kindness!

Also, there were a lot of people who'd been watching the fight from a safe distance, some of them recording parts of the running battle, which helped my case; PHO was going bananas, discussing everything from my costume (very positive, apparently I pull the all-black look off better than Alexandria; mostly, though, people are drooling over all the skin I'm showing) to my method of dealing with the Teeth (not _as_ positive, but a lot of people saw Spree harassing me, so it could be worse).

There were some who were worried, understandably so, about my ability to absorb biomass. I pointed out that Weld, a member of the local Wards, absorbed _metal_ ; just walking down the street could cause thousands in collateral damage, for him.

That… didn't go over so well, until I ensured everyone that I am not only in control of my abilities and won't kill or maim someone just by brushing up against them on the street, but am also very much, abso _lutely **not** _a villain.

I was just minding my own business, and then the Teeth happened! They wanted to do… _nasty_ things to me!

Coming from a people-eating zombie, that's a _bit_ pot-and-kettle, but at least _I_ don't go around abducting and violating people! I _eat_ those kinds of people; not that I told the PRT that, of course, but, yeah, _not a villain_.

Legend believed my claim of innocence, _thank the **river**_ , and then chided me for not running; I riposted with the fact that no one was doing anything about Butcher or the Teeth, and I was possessed of both the ability and the skill to take them down; he indicated the damage I'd caused, citing that _this_ was why no one wanted to try, along with… well, Butcher _did_ have a reputation that preceded her.

To which I shrug and reply calmly, "It had to happen _someday_ , Legend. Just give half the reward to Mr. Wilson, mainly because I broke his poor door with Butcher, and use the rest to clean up and revitalize the area," I pause while he gapes at me, then chirp, "Also, while we're both here, why don't we help clean up? You can do stuff with your lasers, _pew pew_ ," finger guns, "and I'll get those cars out of the alleys with my Brute rating."

"With the number of murders you've just committed-"

"Self-defense!"

" _You slaughtered them!_ "

"No, just _most_ of them. The smart ones and Vex left." He looks like he's about to get a headache, and Chevalier (eeee!) is looking at us oddly, so I add, "That, and I don't think I could've escaped Butcher without causing civilian casualties; she seemed pretty dead-set on killing me. No one got hurt, right?" I'm actually _kinda_ worried about that; I'm _fairly_ sure no one innocent was caught in the middle…

Except Mr. Wilson, but he's okay. The windows were bulletproof (He didn't have enough for the door.), and they were shooting at _me_ , not the buildings.

"No… I still have half a mind to request a Birdcage order for you." Oof. Yeah, killing 28 people, including four capes, in a _debut fight_ can't look good from where Legend's standing… floating… shut up.

"But… I'm cooperating, and it really _was_ self-defense," it kind of hurts that he thinks of me only as a threat.

Also, good thing no one caught what I said during the fight, or I'd be in a _lot_ more trouble right now; I guess those car alarms were good for something after all!

He sighs again, "Yes, and that, along with your mindfulness in keeping the fight contained and away from densely populated areas, are the _only_ reasons why I'm not going to," yay! Oh, he still looks serious, " _But_ , Dreadnaught, there is still the matter of your crimes in Brockton Bay." Ah.

I rub the back of my head, then glance at the destruction, then meet his eyes again, "Um, okay, but can we help clean up this mess before discussing that? I don't think the Teeth are going to help, and _they_ caused most of the damage."

He blinks, not that anyone'd notice, what with that awesome visor, "What."

"Butcher. Explosions. I think someone had a rocket launcher, too…" that Ford Focus would never be the same again…

"Oh…" he looks around, gaze lingering on the smoldering asphalt for a moment, and then cracks his knuckles, "You take the right side, and _try_ not to cause any more damage. Some of this _is_ your fault."

I salute, "Yes, sir!"

Twenty minutes of moving wrecked cars and debris to a dump truck later, I explain what happened when I met Melissa, stressing the fact that I wasn't in _quite_ the sanest frame of mind, given that I'd just triggered not a day ago at the time.

I leave out everything that would out me as the late Taylor Hebert, or my ability to assimilate powers. There's a time to spill the beans and keep them in the jar, after all; people might panic, especially hyper-vigilant PRT Directors and politicians. You know, stupid people.

It's not like I can say, "I'm a girl who's been resurrected as a people-eating zombie with the ability to assimilate the powers and memories of those I eat. Oh, and I'm going to kill Scion." and expect to _not_ get Birdcage-ed or eradicated by the beefy gay Blaster in front of me.

Legend _does_ ask about the morgue though, to which I successfully feign ignorance.

He asks ( _very_ reluctantly) if I'd be interested in coming in for powers testing; I evade with an "I'll think about it," before implying that I'll be returning to Brockton and that I'm possessed of premises that will prove a controlled, safe environment for such testing.

He looks unsure, until I imply that I'd been holding back in my fight with the Teeth and wouldn't want to wreck the PRT facilities just to satisfy his bosses' curiosity.

Legend is mollified (barely) by my pointing this out and agrees to my offer with good grace, but both Chevalier and Bastion, the leaders of the Philly and Boston Protectorate teams, respectively, think I should be brought in regardless, for public safety as well as my own.

I tell them how far they can shove their concern for their reputations (because that's what they're actually worried about), thank Legend for his understanding and promise to touch base once I'm back in Brockton ("…no, don't call me, I'll call you, we'll do lunch… no, but I prefer my steak _very_ rare…"), make my excuses, and retreat down the nearest manhole so I can continue my hunt for **Noelle**.

No autographs, sadly, but there's always later; I'll give them a week or so to cool down, calm their tits, and get their ducks in a row before contacting the PRT ENE base for testing.

I mean, honestly, _I_ barely understand how my powers function, beyond the instinctual stuff of course, but this sort of thing is their _job_. Hopefully, I'll gain further insight into the **river** and how it functions.

Plus, I'll be able to get _so many_ autographs! Oh, and maybe even thank Sophia for getting me out of the locker!

Therefore, I'll take what help I can get…

Down in the mucky sewers of Boston, I stop moving.

Not because I've realized that I just completely _destroyed_ the Teeth all by myself, or that Dragon (who is… apparently an AI… _what_ ) can't detect me and is flipping shit about that, or that neither of these things are really bothering me as much as they should…

I stop because I've remembered something from when I drank the **river's** water: when I do my power test, which will be shortly after arriving back at the Foundry, I must insist on Panacea being present.

The reason for this? **Amy will be the first to stand beside me**.

That's… fairly alarming. Panacea heals people at Endbringer fights, and is a high-profile healer. If I kill her and **change** her, that would paint the world's biggest target on my back. Both hero and villain would be out for my sexy zombie ass.

 _'Patience, Taylor_ ,' I continue on, practicing with the new powers I've gotten to absorb more biomass in the form of rats and rather alarmingly large turtles; I might need the boost shortly, _'It doesn't say that she'll be **changed** when you get home, or when you do the powers test. If you do change her, make sure you don't get caught.'_

What? I don't have _that_ much of a problem with it! Amy Dallon's freckles look… ' _Mmm~, freckles… I can't wait to lick them while…'_

And I spend the rest of my slow crawl through Boston's sewers fantasizing about having kinky zombie sex with Panacea.

[]

Night has fallen by the time I get to the house the Travelers are squatting in.

Or rather, half a mile from the house, in a different suburban project; silently, I rise from the manhole like a dark shade, my sunglass-covered eyes surveying my surroundings swiftly. Suburbs, a lot of 'for sale' signs on lawns. No one with money wants to live here, what with the omnipresent threat of Leviathan engulfing the shoreline and flooding the interior.

It doesn't matter to me. My eyes lock on the distant house, my target this night.

A part of me doesn't want to do this. They're basically _kids_ , with no idea about the titanic motherlode of death about to end them forever. For all they know, this is just another veg-fest on the sofa, eating pizza and discussing (arguing over) the next order of business, **Noelle** fiddling with her hair and wishing she were thin again.

What right do I, Taylor, have to end these hapless fools?

…But they won't _really_ end, will they? The **river** will take them somewhere better than this dying world, give them a better chance at living out their lives in peace and tranquility. Somewhere that's never heard of Endbringers or Parahumans… or Dreadnaught.

I could still leave, ignore this threat, this… abscess slowly festering on this world…

But that would be irresponsible. People would die, _children_ would die, and **Noelle** would become the fourth Endbringer. **I cannot allow this** , cannot allow this plan of the Simurgh's to come to fruition.

I move forward by ten meters, entering **Noelle's** range. I'd best get it over with so I can go home and Tinker for a few days.

 **Noelle** senses me, is confused by the blank spot in her Parahuman-sensing ability; her mild distress is noticed by the other Travelers. Marissa and Francis Krouse go to her, try to placate her. It doesn't work.

 _"Noelle, it's okay, it's probably just-"_

 _"No! I'm telling you, Krouse, something's out there! I feel it!"_

 _"Okay! Krouse, I'll try. Okay, Noelle, so where is it? Is it coming here?"_

 _"…It's… not moving?"_

I take one step closer to the house.

 _A creaking, Noelle shifts, her panic rising, "It just moved! It's coming closer to us!"_

I start walking, slowly, staying to the shadows for the moment.

 _Krouse growls, "Mars, get downstairs, tell Cody and Luke to keep an eye out." She leaves the room, running downstairs to where the others are playing cards, "It's okay, Noelle, we'll take care of it."_

 _Her voice is shrill, "No… No! Krouse, it's_ wrong! _It's not like the others!"_

 _"Okay, what do you mean, Noelle?" he asks calmly, but with an undertone; he is worried, "Different how?"_

 _"Cold," she sounds like she's crying, "Cold, dead, nothing, nothing to see, nothing to feel! SHE'S COMING!"_

I pick up my pace. She can sense me, sense that I'm different from other Parahumans. She might go into a rage state if I dither too long. I need to deal with her, quickly.

 _Downstairs, Cody, "The hell?"_

 _Mars, voice squeaky with worry, "Someone's coming, Noelle can sense them."_

I leap over two houses and land outside the Traveler's house; single-car garage, two story, abandoned for just over a year, no one nearby. Perfect. No one to get in the way.

I hear Noelle's voice, clearly, fraught with panic and fear, "SHE'S HERE!"

Then a freight train slams into me, throwing me into and through several walls of the partially-burned house behind me before I get lodged in the chimney.

Blinking away the brick dust and soot now covering my person, I realize what just happened: Luke, or Ballistic while in costume, hit me with a wall of sand that'd been accelerated to hyper-sonic speeds. If I was still alive, and not possessed of a high Brute rating, that might have killed me.

Hm. They're not taking any chances. Guess I can't afford to play around with them.

 _"Luke, what the hell!"_

 _"What, Cody?! Someone was outside, just standing in the street. Figured that's who Noelle was on about."_ I really need to stop doing that. He eliminated twenty pounds of my biomass with that attack.

 _"Argh, whatever! Jess, can you…?"_

Through the wreckage of the house I'd just been tossed into, a… _thing_ lumbers in; it looks like a cross between a bloodhound and some kind of really scaly gorilla, except it has four whip-like tentacles sprouting from its back, four arms ending in eagle talons, and an alligator's tail.

It isn't alive, which makes it a projection, which means I don't have to worry too much about collateral damage while breaking it.

I also remind myself that I can't leave the Travelers alive. A grim business, to be sure, but a necessary job.

So, I climb out of the wreckage of the chimney. The projection sees me and attacks, bringing two fists and a grasping tentacle to bear.

My response is a straight-punch to its face, delivered at blinding speed. Unlike the Teeth, I don't hold back. The creature _nearly_ does a full-body prolapse before dissipating, accompanied by an aborted cry of shock and fear from the, until now, silent girl in the wheelchair, Jess presumably.

It occurs to me that I'm not using most of my abilities, especially the gifts of the **river** that allow me to predict events in advance; foolish of me. I can't hold back, not for anything. Sure, the reason I'm doing so is that _I don't really want to kill them I want to help them_ but that's not possible. If I help them, the Simurgh will turn my efforts back on me.

This is the only way.

 _"Oh fuck! Ballistic, she's a Brute!" **Noelle** is on the verge of a rage-state, Krouse unsuccessfully pleading with her, trying to calm her._

So… it's best I do this fast, to minimize their suffering.

Before any of them can react or make a new plan, I burst from the house and keep going, through a wall and into a bedroom –

 _Goat heads, cow heads, horse heads, exposed bones and organs, too many mouths, too many eyes, a willowy brunette crowning the horrendous abomination of flesh._

– and crash into Noelle's lower, anomalous body, burying myself deep within her mass before letting the **river's** water explode from my being, tearing through incredibly dense flesh and bone, ignoring her **passenger's** attempts at assimilating and copying my being.

I also ignore Noelle's tortured, resounding screams of pain and terror as I rip her to shreds from the inside and absorb her.

I ignore Krouse's panicked yelling for his friends, his own attempts at removing the lattices that burst from Noelle's flesh, switching them with objects around the room, only for the dark water to get drawn back to Noelle like a magnet.

I ignore Luke's attack with ball bearings. I ignore Cody reversing time at three-second intervals, merely doubling my efforts.

"MARS! KILL ME! PLEASE, KILL ME!"

"Noelle…

" _Mars, it's killing her!_ DO IT!"

"O-Okay… I'm sorry…"

 _That_ might be an issue.

The temperature in the room increases. The **river** tells me I won't be able to stop this attack, won't be able to absorb the heat before it destroys me in a ball of nuclear fusion.

So I form a blade of lattices and stab the two dense cores inside Noelle, the replacements for her Corona growths, before darting out of the mass of quickly dissolving flesh.

My left hand sinks into Marissa's chest, between her breasts, with a _squich,_ the fingers of my right hand in Cody's forehead, a flick of my wrist breaking his neck with a wet _crack_. He's dead before he can reverse time or hit the ground.

A wet, disbelieving gasp leaves the dying blonde's lips.

At the same time, I say earnestly, "I'm sorry, too."

Then I've been switched with a dresser, and a cluster of knives is buried in my chest, accompanied by Luke's tortured scream of grief, which vies with Krouse's as several of the mouths on Noelle let out death rattles, her remains quickly consumed by the lattices a second later.

The floor shatters, heralding a blade-limbed octopus trying to take me down, Luke throwing whatever he can reach at me and screaming in absolute rage, while Krouse tries vainly to keep Marissa from dying; Oliver has already gotten Jess to the van they use to drive around, and is considering using Cody's gun, which he left on a table downstairs, to help his friends against whatever is tearing them apart.

A single kick shatters Jess's latest construct and sends me hurling into the door Luke just sent my way. It shatters too. I direct the mass of lattices that used to be Noelle and send a wave of spikes in the direction of both Luke and Krouse, the latter carrying Marissa down the stairs and trying not to break down, trying to save who he can. She hasn't died yet.

Hm. Marissa's tougher than she looks…

The lattices take Cody's corpse, then wrap around Luke's legs as he tries to flee, tearing both limbs off and sending him to the floor with a pained cry; more tendrils of blessed water wrap around Luke's body and absorb him (and his power, as it will make the projectile ability I ripped from Butcher even more useful).

Then, once I've **assimilated** their biomass into the lattices (forget Cody's power, it's just _stupid_ , like the explode-y teleporting of Butcher) and send the mass that was Noelle to the sewer outside (just in case Marissa gets another shot off), I drop through the hole Jess put in the floor –

Oliver, pointing a gun at me, Krouse having gone past him to carefully place Marissa, who's now bandaged and not bleeding so bad, in the car; Oliver's unnaturally handsome features twist in white-hot anger, "Die."

– and I get shot in the eye. It's the right eye this time. Also, now I need new sunglasses.

I step forward, calmly, as though nothing's happened.

Oliver's breath hitches, "Die!" _Bang!_

In my throat.

 _Bang!_ Between my breasts.

 _Bang!_ In the scarf, hitting my mouth.

"DIE! WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!" _Bang! Bang! Bang! Click!_

I'm standing three feet from Oliver, who is shaking in fear as my eye regenerates before his gaze. Krouse is about to switch me with the hall table behind me.

I strike before he can make the connection, pulping Oliver's skull with a single backhanded blow to his temple, Jess crying out in grieving horror as the boy crumples like a discarded puppet.

Unlike the Teeth, I take no joy from this, save the warm feeling of sending these poor souls, tortured for so long by the Simurgh's machinations, to the embrace of the **river**.

Krouse switches me with the table. I don't give him a chance to capitalize on the minor delay this grants him; I explode from where he sent me, smash through the table separating us, and slap the back of his head before he can make it to the car and escape.

His cranium spins twice on his shoulders before he slumps to his knees.

By the time he's crumpled face-first to the floor, dead before he hits, I've smashed my fist through a window, grabbed Jess, and have sunk my teeth into her skull, taking a nice big bite of her yummy brains and silencing her screams and pleads for mercy.

She is smart, and her blood flooded with both adrenaline and panicked heat. So _delicious_ , the best meal I've _ever_ tasted! I pull her limp form through the broken window and hug her body to mine as her mouth makes choking, feeble sounds. Swallowing my mouthful of bone and grey matter, I whisper encouragingly to her bleeding brains, "It's okay, Jess, you'll understand soon enough."

A lick, _mmm, fizzy_ , another bite, and her body shudders in death. Except her legs. She's suffered enough, so I break her neck to send her **on** , then keep eating.

Jess joins her friends on the **river's** shore, where they help her **understand**. Noelle is there, whole and unmarred once more. She explains to all of them, how her condition was the worst kind of cage, her mind slowly being trapped behind the bars of rage and hunger that tormented her so. They are content. They forgive me, **understanding** , in death, why my actions were necessary. They join hands, together on the **river's** shore, and…

They wait. Why are they waiting?

A groan from the half-dead Marissa distracts me from Jess' delicious body. Ah. Right.

 _'One more to go,_ ' I think with a tired sigh. Hopefully the **river's** other missions won't be this… awful. I mean, I _know_ , this way is easier, will help me further down the line in my efforts to destroy **Zion** , but that's doesn't mean it isn't hard.

Still, my actions this evening have saved thousands of lives, if not _millions_. A potential Endbringer has been eliminated. I'll have to find some way to celebrate, once I get back to the Foundry.

I send out the lattices and siphon up the remaining corpses, including Jess, as I wearily walk to the door to the van, whip it open and – oh, _shit_.

Marissa is holding a small black star between her hands, glaring at me with the utmost **hate** , wheezing out through bloody froth, "Fuck you."

OH SHI – !

The world vanishes in a flash of _white._

[]

I blink my way back to consciousness, the **river** giving me its report.

 _Two thousand, seven hundred thirty-eight pounds of biomass lost_.

I lost nearly _one and a half tons_ of biomass from Marissa's dying attack!

Damn…

I'm not even mad, that's amazing. I'm even _more_ amazed at my continued existence. Where am I, anyway?

Wet brickwork around me, dark, I can hear rats. Ohhh, I'm in the sewers again. Laying in a fetid pool of human waste and filthy water. It's raining outside. Eww.

Okay, still need a detailed status report. Marissa's power was nuclear fusion, so that final explosion couldn't have been subtle…

The **river** tells me that, officially, the cause of the explosion is being attributed to hooligans accidentally causing a gas explosion; the PRT is still investigating, as they found Marissa's burnt-out husk of a body, but their post-cognitive Thinkers won't be able to implicate me.

Mainly because, even though Marissa's power prevented her from being burnt, she died seconds after setting off that last explosion; the resulting plasma in the air immolated her remains just before she arrived at the **river's** banks, joining her friends on their next great adventure.

Also, just looking at me, or my actions, gives Thinkers the heebie-jeebies. Or headaches.

 _'Okay, that's good, I just have to get out of the city before someone_ unpowered _puts two-and-two together,_ ' I think with a self-assured nod; it shouldn't be _too_ hard to do that. Also, mission accomplished! Time to go home, find some ice cream, eat a deer, Tinker a bit, and mope about this for a few days.

I struggle out of the murky, waste-filled waters of Boston's sewers ( _'I'll need a shower too at some point…'_ ), get myself back to my feet –

My head hits the top of the tepid sewer pipe I'm currently in, _hard_. "Ow." Force of habit this time.

– to a crouch, before surveying myself; I'm _definitely_ thinner than I was, before attacking the Travelers. _'On the other hand, this is **less good**. A ton and a half! That's, like, a _third _of the mass I had before absorbing Noelle! How much weight do I even have left – '_

 _Seventy-eight thousand, eight hundred and six point five three pounds of biomass._

…what.

 _Noelle_.

Oh…

HOW DID THAT NOT GET BURNED OFF… oh.

I'd sent out most of my biomass to collect the rest of the Travelers, and what I'd gotten from Noelle went into the sewer. Oh, and apparently, due to Hemmorrhagia's power, so long as part of me is _somewhere_ , even if my main body dies, I'll be able to continue existing through that fragment, absorbing and building up biomass once again until I have a body once more… but why am I so _thin_?

Oh… I'm actually so dense, I need to pack everything in as close as possible, or I'd need to create more of me to evenly distribute my _holy fuck I weigh nearly forty tons what the hell was Noelle **eating**_ weight; that is, more versions of my body.

The only other way to manage this much biomass is to make myself eight feet tall and give my body the most _ridiculous_ proportions. And by 'ridiculous', I mean so completely unrealistic and voluptuous I'd be mistaken for a basement-dwelling pervert's projection.

Even the **river** thinks that's a terrible idea, and I'm in complete agreement! Just… _no._

Shaking my head at these useful but _weird_ aspects of my powers, I turn into a swarm of insects and start navigating my way out of the sewers, intent on getting back to Brockton Bay, where we have Nazis and rage-dragons and druggies and ice cream in winter and everything's nice and _sane_.

 **[]**

 **[]**

 **[]**

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Next time: Chapter 3: Convert

 ** _Very short_** **A/N:**

 **Skittles: …Holy fuck, dude, I _love you_.**

 **You're welcome. Stop eating my cheesecake.**


	4. YAY! I get sum fun timez!

**HOLY SHIT, it's an update!**

 **What's more, I'm crossposting this to Questionable Questing later for further analysis, reader responses and quality critique.**

 **And now, without further ado, CONSENT TO THE LOVING CARESSES OF LORD NURGLE! FOR CHAOS, AND BUTTSEX!**

 **I… I mean, um, enjoy the latest installment! *note to self: do not mix religion and work***

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 **Chapter 3  
Convert**

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As I live alone, and am… well, I like eating people, so one might call me a cannibal… I don't really expect anyone to be in my 'house', waiting for me to return home.

But, well, there it is. Or rather, _she_.

There's a woman in my redoubt. Sitting on my couch. _Drinking my tea_.

Picture this: I have just landed in one of the collapsed portions of the Foundry, a bag of groceries in one hand containing a couple tubs of ice cream, a box of assorted teas, and a few dozen different kinds of sunglasses. In my other hand, a deer hind leg, still warm.

What? Fighting villains is hard work, and the buck was just _standing there_ on the train tracks leading up here. Someone might as well have hung a huge sign saying EAT ME on the antlered creature. That deer horns taste a little like garlic breadsticks is as massive plus! But I digress.

So there I am, still thin for some reason… and I can see someone in my appropriated redoubt drinking _my_ tea on _my_ nice sofa.

 _'Hmm…'_ I think, taking a bite out of my leg of venison, _'Who's invited themselves into my home? Oh **river** , tell me your secrets!'_

Like taxes on payday, the **river** gives me an unavoidable kick to the head, enlightening me on this mystery person.

Oh. They're part of Cauldron. What was that again? Oooh, Case 53s, eh? I wonder what Legend has to do with –

…What the _shit_ , **river**. A little warning before you ruin my estimation of _all_ my childhood heroes!

On the other hand, it's just the Triumvirate… the founders and leaders of the Protectorate… son of a bitch. And the woman _drinking my tea_ is here to recruit and/or neutralize me if I pose a threat to Cauldron's operations. _Alexandria_ suggested this. Fucking _Alexandria_ , who is apparently living a double life.

I savage the leg, teeth crunching loudly through tasty marrow, so as to bleed off some hostility. The woman in my house is VERY dangerous. I mean, sure, I could kill her easily, but that'd bring a whole mountain of trouble down on my head. **Zion** might take notice as well…

…Oh? Ohhh! Thanks, **river**!

Swapping my human legs out for a deer/grasshopper hybrid, I move swiftly through the Foundry and come to a stop eight seconds later in front of the Cauldron agent. Contessa. Fortuna.

She hasn't taken her hat or coat off. _'Oh my god, it's like she's never heard of manners or proper guest etiquette!'_ and she's just sitting there, one of my good porcelain tea cups halfway to her lips, looking like I've surprised her greatly with my sudden appearance.

Nice act, "Good morning," I say evenly, before stuffing the deer hoof in my mouth, making it crunch between my teeth pointedly while staring down at the woman.

"Hello, Dreadnaught. You know who I am, and why I'm here," Contessa replies, as though she's reading from a script, taking another sip of _my tea_ before daintily setting the cup down on the tray, "I'd prefer you make this easy on yourself –"

I snatch the fedora off her head and put in on my own dome before turning and walking away from her, heading for the freezer to store my slowly melting ice cream. Behind me, Contessa does a marvelous impression of a landed fish before whispering, "My… my hat…"

Dairy confectionaries dutifully stored in the ice box, I turn back around to find the woman standing and glaring determinedly at me, fingers clenching. She wants her hat back, and is trying (failing) to Path a way to do so. Adorable.

"I realize you don't understand complex social concepts like personal space and private property, mainly due to your passenger being a right cunt," I begin, crossing my arms and leaning against a wall, one which plays host to a mural I've painted of the Solar System's planets, "But _this_ , Contessa?" I waved a hand at my tea set, "If I were actually evil, I'd have killed you without warning and eaten your meaty parts for trespassing and drinking my _fucking_ tea, without invitation or so much as a by-your-leave."

And she looks like a landed fish again. That's a really good impression.

It also pisses me off, hence me barking, "Say something, you amoral, misguided _bitch!_ " making the woman give a tiny flinch, though her expression doesn't shift far from neutral; to my dismay, her eyes keep flicking left to right as she tries to Path a way to get my compliance. Or her hat back. She likes this hat.

Like I give a _fuck_. Tea is one of the only things that still tastes the same as when I was alive. And she drank it. Without asking. Bitch.

After sighing, I say wearily, "You came here to gauge my threat level to please your little not-so-secret society, and ensure either my alliance with said group, _or,_ much more idiotically, make sure I don't become a threat to your operations," I stare at her until she nods, but her expression hasn't changed. This is what I've come home to: a woman with the emotional spectrum of a koala, but not nearly as snuggly, trying to figure out how to get on my good side.

I could just eat her, but that… wouldn't turn out so well…

"Listen to me carefully, Contessa. Are you listening?" another mechanical nod; good **river** , she even Pathed _that!_ "You, and all of your friends, are, bar none, the inter-dimensional heavyweight champions of being colossal, titanic, egregious _morons_. And yes," I add acidly when she opens her mouth, "I'm counting King Leopold, the Nazi SS, and whichever bright spark thought it'd be a good idea to build a nuclear reactor on Japan's east coast."

Leviathan has an appointment with my lattices for _that_ one.

A long moment passes before she opens her mouth again, robotically saying, "You're making a mist-"

I cut her off coldly, "When was the last time you _didn't_ Path your way through a conversation, _Fortuna_?" Good. _Now_ she's scared, if the paling of her face and the clenching of her hands are any indication. Time to shatter her world-view, "Did it ever occur to you that the creation of the C53s is _exactly_ what that fucking _parasite_ wanted you to do?!"

Okay, so that's what's got me so mad right now: they were able to _nearly_ kill one of the **parasites** , BUT, instead of studying ways to _destroy_ the **passengers** , they attach them to people instead. People they've been kidnapping from multiple worlds, some of whom were only peripherally human upon acquisition.

Having a lot of them in one place may create a blindspot in Zion's sensing ability, which is useful, but that doesn't excuse their preforming horrendous experiments _on people_ that even the masterminds behind the Holocaust would balk at!

And the remaining **parasite** knows this and has _no problem_ with their actions, because the retarded _thing_ thinks it's just his mate, who he knew was damaged before this 'Cycle' of theirs began, sending out damaged or crippled **passengers** as she tries to regenerate. But nooo, it's just Cauldron fucking shit up on a pan-dimensional scale!

Oh, and Contessa seems to be confused, "Parasite?"

It is a Herculean effort to resist face-palming, "You call her Eden."

Her brows slam together, "How… what do you know about them?" she's also getting a headache.

Boy, it sure is _great_ I can't get those anymore, or I'd be feeling like someone set off a bomb in my skull! How dense can you get?!

"Besides my point, and you're changing the subject," I drawl before snapping at the pugnacious woman, "Did you even _listen_ to anything I just said?"

She straightens, "We're saving the world. This is the best Pa- ow." I've just darted in front of her and flicked her in the forehead before darting back to the mural.

"That's your problem," I retort hotly, "You're relying on the _passengers_ to give you the answers, but Eden hampered you when you tried to kill her. You've been flying blind for damn-near thirty years, throwing random shit at the wall that is the _parasite_ without knowing what will stick, when, news flash Contessa," I lean forward and say slowly, "you lost the moment you stood before the _thing_ you call 'Eden'. It all but ensured you'd spread its _passengers_ , and that it would seem like a good idea."

A long, tense moment of silence passes before Contessa whispers, both in fear and anger, "How do you know all this?"

My scarf is still down (hard to eat with it in the way), but I _am_ wearing a pair of mirrored Aviators. I take them off and toss them aside. They skid across the floor, scuffing the lenses. I don't much care, really. I have, like, another ten of the things, and Contessa won't rat out who, or _what_ , I am.

 _"All things are clear in death, Fortuna."_

Her face is uncomprehending at first, hence her rapid blinking and building headache. It's a long minute before the other foot drops, but her reply is still mechanical despite her attempts to make it sound otherwise, "If… if you know so much, you can help us. Help me find the right Path…" she stops, because I'm shaking my head.

How could such an intelligent woman be so… so… eh, I'm blaming this on her **passenger**.

"You've already lost, Contessa. You lost the moment you helped Doctor Mother found Cauldron and created the vials," I raise a hand when she opens her mouth, indicating she should shut up and listen, "I want you to Path something for me, right now, and in return, I let you go. Ready?" she still looks pugnacious, but that's not her fault; anyway, Contessa nods warily after a long moment, and I ask evenly, "Path to killing the Entities?"

Heh. Entities. The omnicidal **parasites** , according to a butchery of Spanish and English slang, are 'in mammaries'. That's funny.

Ooh, speaking of boobies, maybe I should go kidnap Amy (freckles, _mmm~_ ) and find out why my body can't be super-sexy again. I think it has something to do with the crystalline material that was in Noelle, which I've coated my bones with because it's _so durable_ , but maybe there's a different way…

I think this because I have to use the rest of my biomass to keep those crystalline bits from turning me into a puddle of goo, or, well, Kaiser's bimbos would have nothing on what I'd turn into. Nine-foot Amazon zombie bimbo that'd make even the fakest bitch out there wince in horror.

Then again… maybe Amy'd be into that?

"What." Oh, right, Contessa. She's staring at me in shock.

I nod sagely, "And there you have it. Thirty years of being a bunch of idiots, fucking up _thousands_ of lives, and generally making things worse… all of it comes to an end, _you win_ , if the next thing you say is correct. If you _don't_ say the correct phrase, well," I smile darkly, which makes the awed/horrified woman sweat profusely, "I'm sure your little Path to Victory can answer what'll happen to you and your friends. So, what's it gonna be, Tuney?" I fold my arms over my (unfortunately flat) chest again, tilting my head, shamelessly raking my eyes over Contessa's body and licking my teeth eagerly, just to give her a little push in the right direction.

Contessa takes a deep, _deep_ breath through her nose, and says hoarsely, "Door to Earth Aleph, Mall of America."

I toss her the fedora, "Good choice. Don't come back." I have a limited amount of tea. Also patience.

She leaves hastily through the rectangle of light, which winks out of existence a few seconds later.

Smart woman. I mean, she's still an idiot if she thinks she can Path a way to kill me, because then her power will start doing loops.

Dead but alive but dead but alive but… Yeah, like that, but endlessly. She nearly gave herself a stroke trying to find my weakness, for the **river's** sake.

Well, I've got nothing to do for a week or so, a lot of ice cream, and a crystalline structure to manage… maybe the ice cream will work for that, shore up the stuff with dairy-infused minty chocolate and peanut butter cups. I'll keep kidnapping Panacea for Plan D.

Heh. D.

…fuck, some of the Teeth rubbed off on me. My sense of humor's going out of whack! Goddamnit, _not again!_

 **[]**

Alexandria was trying _very hard_ not to tap a hole in the table. Number Man, who was seated across her typing on his laptop next to a grumpy-looking Eidolon, said the next table was coming out of her paycheck if she broke this one, and Amazonian wood tables were really expensive for some reason. You'd think being able to access multiple Earths would render such expenses inert, but nooo, each one was a million or higher.

Maybe they should try going with Tinker-made materials? It _was_ cheaper and more durable, if less aesthetically pleasing to the eye…

Before she could think on it further, Doctor Mother huffed impatiently, "She should've been back by now." Ah. Contessa. Alexandria was a little worried about her as well. She'd seen the video of Dreadnaught slaughtering the Teeth. It'd reminded her of the Siberian's rampages, hence her asking Cauldron's boogeyman to (carefully) get the dark berserker's measure.

If it didn't work, or Contessa was murdered in the process? Alexandria would deal with Dreadnaught. Personally.

"I could go looking for her," volunteered Eidolon eagerly. He'd been looking bored lately, probably due to the dearth of villains around Houston.

It irked Alexandria that the man always needed _some_ kind of challenge, or he'd get all surly and start whining. In this way, David was still very much the depressed alcoholic. Except with superpowers and not as much alcohol as before Cauldron found him, Paul and Rebecca…

She didn't like thinking about the fourth member, or what he'd say about their recent deeds.

"No," Number Man hummed, not looking up from the NYSE ticker, even as Eidolon glared at the side of his head, "I'm 98 percent sure she'll be back shortly." He glanced at the Doctor, "Didn't she say she might have to make a detour after the meeting?"

The woman in question nodded and hummed woodenly, while Alexandria tried her best to stay calm and patient as the clock's ticking started to feel like a torturous metronome; Legend would be joining them in a little under five minutes, and the nominal leader of the Protectorate had already ordered both Eidolon and her _not_ to have any Cauldron assets approach Dreadnaught. But what did Paul know about the dark cape?

Nothing, that's what! And Rebecca would be _damned_ if she'd let some unknown prance about unchecked and unwatched. That was just asking for trouble. Or another Siberian Incident.

Four minutes. Eidolon was looking a little worried now too, but Number Man was cool as… ice cream in February. _'Maybe I should pick up a tub on the way home,'_ mused Alexandria, resting her chin on a fist, _'But where? LA doesn't have many_ good _venues…_ ' Maybe it was time to take a trip to Brockton Bay, grab a waffle cone, slap Calvert around a bit…

Then a door opened behind her, drawing everyone's attention as it disgorged…

Contessa. Who was carrying several paper shopping bags in one hand, and two triple-scoop waffle cones in the other; she also looked faintly pleased with herself?

 _'What the?'_ "Contessa?" Doctor Mother's voice sounded faintly confused to Alexandria. Understandable, but unusual. Just like Contessa showing up with ice cream.

The fedora aficionado held out the cones to Rebecca, "Take the rocky road, it's fantastic." Alexandria did so, numb with shock but… not _particularly_ displeased by this development. The napkin on the cone read 'Anderson's'. There were chopped peanuts on the ice cream, which hadn't melted yet.

Kicking herself mentally, Alexandria asked, with mild annoyance, "Not that I'm ungrateful, Contessa, as I'd just been thinking about getting ice cream," she watched as the Cauldron agent withdrew a… hand-carved salt and pepper shaker set, fashioned to look like ducks kissing ( _'That's adorable.'_ ), and placed it before a pleasantly surprised Doctor Mother, "But I could've _sworn_ we told you to go get Dreadnaught's measure."

"Yeahhh, and I did that," replied Contessa, handing Number Man a… _coconut?!_ And the complete DVD collection of _Monty Python's Flying Circus?!_ Even _he_ looked surprised, "Followed the Path and everything. And you want to know something?" The woman walked over to David…

And upturned the rest of the bag's contents in front of him. A book on meditation techniques, another on Buddhism, a pack of multicolored stress balls, a self-therapy pamphlet, a Rubik's Cube and a variety of do-it-yourself models. Airplanes, anime robots, and boats. Alexandria's Thinker power read the copyright info and told her all of it was from Aleph. Also, David was just as shocked and confused as everyone else.

Contessa took a lick of ice cream, looked Doctor Mother in the eye and cheerfully reported, "We done goofed. Dropped the ball. Screwed the pooch. Up Shit Creek and heading for the rapids."

David looked up from his inspection of the stress ball packets with a worried expression. Doctor Mother tensed, gripping the arms of her chair tightly. It was Number Man who asked the terse question on everyone's mind, though, mostly because Rebecca had decided to try her dairy treat, figuring she should steady her nerves before the full report; it was quite delicious.

"What do you mean? What did Dreadnaught say to you?"

The powerful Thinker shrugged, looking a little dejected, "Well, once she was done explaining how much we've fucked up, and no, I don't know or _want to know_ how she found out about us, she asked me to run a Path. "How do we kill the Entities"; not only did it work, but it turns out…" she leaned on the table, licked up some melted mint chocolate chip from her vanilla dip cone, and said, more to the Doctor than anyone else, "we don't really have to do _anything_ at this point, beyond a few evacuations."

Six-point-seven seconds of silence followed this declaration.

"Excuse me?" Alexandria whispered, feeling quite thrown, "Elaborate? Explain? Please?"

Contessa nodded, "I'll start at the beginning. So, remember how we get rid of failed vials by dumping them through random doors?" everyone nodded; it wasn't the _best_ disposal plan, but it hadn't bitten them – oh.

Oh fuck-damnit to _shit_.

Rebecca understood. Instead of hammering her head into the nice expensive table, however, she just took an extra-big bite of rocky road and savaged it between her teeth, thankful she could no longer get brain freeze or break her teeth. The confection _still_ tasted amazing, a nice juxtaposition to the ashes on her tongue.

Number Man performed a picture-perfect face-palm and groaned, "Oh fuck, we made her, didn't we?"

"Not exactly," Cauldron's premier Thinker calmly stated, "The power in question was, before disposal, a minor Tinker/Thinker/Changer power; it allowed for the complex restructuring of biological matter at the micro level, allowing an individual to take on the properties of creatures they consumed. It was discarded because it kept cannibalizing whoever we attached it to.

"The disposal method was, quote, 'Door to somewhere awful'; it ended up in a High School gym locker filled with an unspeakably awful biologic hazard," the Doctor groaned and face-palmed as well, the two present members of the Triumvirate staring in awe at Contessa's matter-of-fact tone, "Long, horrific story short, it mixed with the blood and flesh of someone who'd been stuffed in said locker and left to die. They Triggered, but they were already in contact with the vial's contents; this created an esoteric 'double fault' and mutated the Trigger Event."

Alexandria interrupted her, "Giving us Dreadnaught," Contessa toasted her with her cone while Rebecca wracked her mind, looking for such an incident; it was easy to find, "The Winslow Incident," she breathed, "Shadow Stalker." It looked like she'd have to pay Brockton a visit after all.

At least she had ice cream…

"Hold," groaned Number Man, sounding like he had a headache as he addressed Contessa wearily, "I thought Taylor Hebert was dead."

"She is," stated the Thinker as David opened one of the stress ball packs.

It was then that Legend floated into the room, looking cross; Alexandria realized that he'd been listening, which was supported by his saying to the Doctor through gritted teeth, "I thought you were phasing out the use of the vials. Clearly I was mistaken."

"We have no choice _but_ to phase them out, now," quipped Contessa over her shoulder; after taking a bite of her ice cream and Paul's understandable question of 'Why?', she continued, "Because, if we don't, Dreadnaught will start destroying our assets, the Triumvirate's reputation, and generally fuck shit up on such a massive scale that no amount of PR will save us. Oh," she added as an afterthought, "she'll also tear us all apart and eat us for dinner."

Eidolon looked up from squeezing a green ball, saying dismissively, "I can take her." Alexandria had to agree; he and Legend were the only ones who were able to hold the Siberian when she rampaged in New York.

"Yeah, right _now_ , maybe," Contessa allowed while Legend looked positively _livid_ , glaring at Rebecca heatedly; she wilted slightly and stared at her ice cream as the powerful Thinker continued, "And that's a _big_ maybe, seeing as she's one feeding frenzy away from becoming a discount Endbringer."

Number Man looked up sharply and spoke over the uproar that declaration brought, "When you say 'discount', you mean…?"

' _Oh my god, REALLY?!'_ thought Alexandria, opening her mouth to rebuke the former member of the Nine, but Contessa beat her to it.

"An Endbringer-lite. One that is not only capable of speech and cognitive dissonance, but also remorse and empathy," she explained, quieting the other members of Cauldron, "Virtually immortal, high Brute and Striker ratings, Thinker, Stranger, Changer, Mover, Blaster, and Trump; her potential is limitless, but she cares about people… in a really, _really_ twisted sort of way," the Thinker frowned, "She also strongly disagrees with how we're doing things, and, therefore, won't be happy when she realizes what Coil is up to. But that's not the point.

"The point is: we _accidentally_ helped create a way to defeat Scion. That Path I mentioned earlier? We don't have to do anything, beyond creating a refuge on another world for the evacuees, and settling all our C53s, Doormaker, Clairvoyant and ourselves there. Once everything goes to shit, that is," she calmly licked her ice cream while everyone looked on in confused awe. Then she looked at Legend, "And that won't be for another five months."

 _"Five months?!"_ Doctor Mother cried in perfectly understandable horror while ice ran down Alexandria's spine, "I thought we had two years, twenty _at most!"_

"Before Dreadnaught, yes," Contessa allowed with a rueful tone, "Problem is, no one, including everyone in this room, is capable of applying enough leverage to keep Dreadnaught from kicking over one apple cart after another; yes, David, you're included there. You can only use three powers at once, and you'd only have _one shot_ , which she'd likely precog and dodge. Eventually, she's going to draw Scion's attention; right now, however, he's blind to all her works, and, seeing as he's a total _dofus_ …" she trailed off pointedly, smirking at everyone in turn.

Alexandria got it first, and laughed softly, "By the time he realizes how strong she's getting, it'll be too late, won't it?" Contessa nodded. "Can Dreadnaught steal powers as well?" It… sounded like a possibility…

Legend agreed, too, rubbing his chin, "It seems likely… the Butcher's autopsy is done, by the way. Her Corona growths looked like someone took a pickaxe to them. Currently," he added, still sounding a little peeved at them but not enough to invoke death lasers, "we're going with the line that she uses that black material as a necrotic Striker power."

"Good job!" Contessa gave Legend a cheesy thumbs up, which he frowned in confusion at, then confirmed Alexandria's theory, "By the way, Alexandria, gold star. Dreadnaught absorbed several of Butcher's powers, but doesn't have her teleport, danger sense, or pain infliction. Given how skilled she is, I don't think she needed them. She also has Hemhhoragia's power, Bakuda's Tinker ability, and two of the Travelers, who she killed in Boston that same night."

Doctor Mother looked like her world was crashing down around her, "We… can we even _contain_ her?"

After a moment of thought, Rebecca regarded her ice cream and spoke up quietly, "The only place that _might_ hold her is the Birdcage…" she looked over at David and Paul, who were both looking at her like she was crazy, and smiled bitterly, "But that's a _really bad idea_. I don't even _want_ to know what Dreadnaught and Glaistig Uaine would do in an enclosed space."

"And that goes against the spirit in which that facility was founded," Number Man leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples, then let out a gusty sigh, " _Fuck_ , well, I guess we do what we've always been doing: follow the Path to Victory."

"No shit," drawled Contessa, popping the last of her cone into her mouth and ignoring the glares leveled at her from all around the table.

 **[]**

"For _fuck's_ sake!" I scream in frustration as another deer bolts; I would pursue, except for one small, not at all huge problem.

 _My fucking legs keep mutating!_ Stupid, belligerent crystalline remains of Noelle won't fucking listen!

For the past two days, it's been like this: I eat some of the flesh in my freezer, along with some ice cream, and go looking for fresh food. Usually, this wouldn't be a really big problem; find deer, jump on deer, eat deer, and play with myself for a few minutes in its corpse.

What? Orgasms are fun. Fireworks all over me, bursting under my skin, tingly and warm; that I now have tits with perky, rock-hard nipples makes it even better. More surface area to play with, complete with love buttons on my nice, fleshy mounds.

Un-fucking-fortunately, stupid Noelle with her stupidly dense biomass is _still_ fucking with me, even after I ate her! Now, I'm not only back to being skinny as a rake (come back, boobs!), but there must've been some other kind of corruption going on with her, because my body keeps mutating into random patterns!

Like now! I've just lost a nice, big, beefy buck to my legs picking the _worst_ possible time to turn into toy Pomeranian legs, mixed with fly legs and snail feet; which is weird, because _I_ never ate someone's Pomeranian! Fucking Noelle!

Even worse, at some point, I'm supposed to contact the Protectorate so they can help me figure some shit out! How the **river** am I supposed to do that when my body won't listen to me?!

Suppressing another growl, and spending 15 goddamn minutes to return to my lab, I hug my legs to my sadly flat chest and focus, subsuming my mind in the material that makes up my being.

I wince internally at the sight: the crystalline growths that were once Noelle are trying to assimilate the **river's** water, a constant power struggle that would put most ancient battles to shame with its violence. DNA templates are being recreated and destroyed with each passing second; even as I watch, the ball joint in my left shoulder tries to turn into a ladybug's wing.

Luckily, I'm watching all this happen, as though from outside my body; a mental glare and twitch of will has my shoulder re-settle, but _now_ my ribs are trying to turn into an exoskeleton, and some of my body is shifting into eighteen different types of lung!

 _'Ugh. This is gonna take a minute,'_ I think with frustration, digging deeper into my being than I ever have before, picking at the crystalline pieces and unravelling them into their constituent parts, trying to **understand** them.

My dilemma quickly becomes much more serious, once I unravel six of the pieces: each one is different and constantly mutating, trying to turn me into another Noelle. In hindsight, I muse with a small grumble, I probably should've only absorbed the fleshiest bits of the girl… but if I hadn't completely **assimilated** her, another Noelle would've manifested from the remains. Shit!

This is going to take longer than a minute, so I dig deep and start the long, arduous process of unravelling all eighty-seven million, three-hundred and thirty-one thousand and ninety-four individual pieces of Noelle that are trying to turn me into a dollar-store shoggoth.

While tentacles _would_ be fun, to say nothing of the increased potential for fucking the brains out of my snacks before eating them, I don't think many other people would appreciate the rapey tentacle girl I'd turn into. Hell, _I_ don't want to turn into a rapey tentacle girl! I'm having a hard enough time not eating everyone in a five mile radius as is!

Hopefully, everyone would understand my absence.

Deep, deep into myself my mind goes… and there, in the deep, vast waters of my being, I hear the souls of those I've sent to the **river** … and others…

 **[]**

 _A battle plain. I am a Persian solder, who was taken from my home, promised wealth and women and safety for my family, but the army shaking the ground with their long spears are a white line of death before me._

 _I don't want to die._

 _An hour of running and screaming and blood later, I try to jump between the spears, try to take one of them with me._

 _Three spears impact my body, tear my ribs out; they leave me to be trampled by their incessant marching, bleeding out in the dust._

 _I don't want to die!_

 **[]**

 _I'm hungry, so I cry out._

 _No one comes, so I cry out some more._

 _Daddy comes. He smells bad. I want mommy! I'm hungry!_

 _My daddy is screaming at me._

 _I don't understand. I'm hungry!_

 _He picks me up. I'm hungry. Will he feed me?_

 _He screams. His face is ugly. I'm scared!_

 ** _SHAKE_**

 _Something pops in my head! It hurts!_

 ** _SHAKE_**

 _It hurts! I want mommy! I'm scared!_

 ** _Sha..ke…_**

 _It's getting dark! I don't want to die!_

 **[]**

 _The doctor opens the door to the freezer room. I'm not as worried about the little shit as he seems to be; the kid is weird. Probably just jerking it to porn, or something else popular among twenty-somethings these days-_

 _A black blur flies out. A white girl, naked and splattered with blood._

 _She takes a bite out of the doctor's head and I can see his brains and I'm scared and oh god kill it kill it!_

 _Bang._

 _It doesn't die._

 _It looks at me._

 _Bang._

 _It lunges at me. Pain._

 _I don't want to die!_

 **[]**

 _I'm innocent! Oh god, please, someone deliver me!_

 _But no one does. They jeer and throw rotten food at us, me and the other four in the carriage; a pavilion appears, a market square._

 _Guillotine._

 _I'm crying, but no one listens. I haven't done anything wrong! I just didn't get out of the way of that soldier fast enough! Please, someone, anyone!_

 _I DON'T WANT TO DIE!_

 _The blade falls with a meaty **chop**._

 _I can't breathe but I can still see and they show me to the crowd and I can hear them clapping and cheering over the ringing and I don't… want… to…_

 **[]**

 _She is killing them. Our people. Ours, not hers. We hate her. We try to kill her. Burn her! Kill her! Kill her!_

 _"You cannot kill… what is already **dead**!"_

 _Dead, that is why we can't fell her, why her wounds won't remain, why she feels no pain, no rage, only death._

 _Only purpose. Purpose in death. We can use this. If she kills us, all her blood will be for naught, for we will become her._

 _She kills us, but we can't take hold! We can't take her!_

 _She laughs, on the shore of the river…_

 _And_

 _We_

 ** _Understand_** _…_

 **[]**

 _I look at the ruined corpse of my daughter and feel the hot rage turn cold. She was supposed to be mine. She was supposed to grow up and turn out just like her mother. Just one more year and she would've been legal. I wasn't stupid; I'd seen how down and morose she'd been getting. She'd been reading fewer books._

 _A little attention, right around Easter, then build up before her birthday, and she would've been the perfect replacement for Annette. Better, even. His little princess…_

 _And Alan's little bitch took her away. Took my Taylor away._

 _I'll show them. I'll fucking show them…_

 **[]**

 _In my sleep, I heard the Simurgh singing to me. I didn't understand it, not then, and not now._

 _But dying's not so bad, really; better than the singing, anyway. Krouse is screaming and crying. I feel the **thing** in me tell them to kill me, to deny my nemesis her due._

 _I wish I could've stopped it from saying that – ow._

 _Oh. She's… killed me…_

 _Good. I hope there… isn't a… hell… that… wou…ld…n't… be… f…a…i…r…_

 **[]**

 _Another man busts his nut inside me. I'm already pregnant, but I feel sick. Too sick. Sicker than mom was, for sure, when she had my little bro._

 _Another bag of golden brown is tossed against my heaving tits. I don't feel good. It felt good, those first few weeks, but it doesn't feel good anymore._

 _One bag is good for three days. Three days at once and…_

 _And I can escape…_

 _It makes me cry, even as I cook the whole bag up; I don't really want to die, but it's better than this! Even nothingness has to be better than this!_

 _The needle hurts a little as I stick it in my neck. I can still go back, put some back in the spoon, just feel good for a little while. But my belly's turning black. If the baby dies inside me… who am I kidding? It's probably dead already._

 _I'm sorry mom. I'm not going to be a vet… I'm sorry Bobby. I can't teach you how to ride your bike, or-or be there when you graduate… please, be good for mom…_

 _…I'll see you soon, Max. You're such a good dog…_

 _…_

 _The other girls… they were wrong. It hurts, hurts, it hurts so much… but at least it's warm…_

 _I hear Max barking… and it's not… not so..._

 **[]**

 ** _They're ugly aren't they?_**

 _Who?_

 ** _Them. All of them. The heroes of their own stories._**

 _No. They're not ugly._

 ** _Even the drunk dad who kills his child?_**

 _No._

 ** _Naïve, that's what you are, Taylor. Your own father wanted to fuck you, dress you up like a doll, and you don't think that's ugly?_**

 _No._

 ** _Why?_**

 _Because nothing is ugly. And the River is everything, anathema to nothing. Another expression of itself, another drop in its currents. There are millions of beings like them, but are they ugly? Do I hate them? No. Because they are the River. For that, if nothing else… they are worthy of our protection._

 ** _Naïve, I say again. You won't protect them forever. One day, you'll be their worst nightmare given form and purpose._**

 _I know._

 ** _Then why? Why do you hesitate?_**

 _…I… I don't know. Maybe I just want to be a hero, not... Dreadnaught?_

 ** _…That's because_ I'm _Dreadnaught. You're just Taylor._**

 _Oh. Well… can I die now?_

 ** _No. I need you. You need me. One cannot exist without the other._**

 _Why not?! This… this is_ worse _than the pain! This, this,_ empty existence!

 ** _Empty? The only thing holding you back from being full, Taylor… is_ you.**

 _So I should just, what, kill everyone?! Everything?! Devour this whole world and send it to the River?!_

 ** _Of course not._**

 _THEN WHAT THE FUCK SHOULD I DO?!_

 ** _Stop being such a coward, hiding in your little box, and FEED. TURN THEM. DOMINATE! ASSIMILATE!_**

 _…They'll hate me. They'll fall on me like an avalanche._

 ** _I AM YOU. YOU ARE ME. WE. ARE. DREADNAUGHT._**

 _…stop caring?_

 ** _Care for yours. Turn the hateful. Eat the rest._**

 _…okay._

 **[]**

My eyes open. I'm still in the same position, but a few spider webs have formed around my body. How long have I been out of it?!

A twitch of my inner being consumes the webs, along with the spiders hiding between the floorboards; but I save a few, experimenting again. Turning them is easy, as is buffing them with some of my biomass.

Sixteen seconds after waking, and three jet-black, dinner plate-sized spiders are crawling on my hunched over form.

I remember everything I saw; it's a bit jarring, to know the blackness in people's minds, to know how everyone thought of me. There was more, that I barely saw in the darkness: Emma and Blackwell and all the other students of Winslow; I was actually kind of surprised how many boys (and a few girls) thought about taking advantage of me.

But I was done being the victim.

Shaking my head, I stand, restructuring my body back to its former hotness. _'Interesting,'_ I think, running my hands over my nice big tits, my shapely body, _'I'm still not averse to the idea of using my body to lure in snacks, but… it's more a curiosity than anything…'_ a smile finds its way onto my plump lips as I change my face a little bit at a time, before looking in the mirror over the extremophile's tank.

A few more adjustments. Less curly hair, more wave. Fix my nose and mouth. Make my eyes and jawline less gawky, more heart-shaped. Prettier.

There. I look less like my mother and father, and more like a classic beauty. A Venus.

I chuckle darkly. A Venus flytrap, a literal maneater.

Poetic, thy name is Dreadnaught.

I hear a _clank_ , over in my main room. I look behind me; five life-signs, all teenage girls. One is trying to break in here, my laboratory and larder. They came here looking for somewhere to get drunk and high, somewhere no one could find and rat them out to their… Empire parents, oh-la-la!

A hungry grin splits my face. One is Rune, Rhonda Evans. Ah, and what's this? A closet cannibal?!

Hmm… well, according to the **river** , I won't be **changing** any of them… but that doesn't mean I can't have some fun!

Hero? Villain? These are just words; what is a villain? Someone who runs with a gang, or ignores the law for their own gain? What are the laws of men and mortal to me, anyway? Can you even prosecute someone who's a literal walking corpse?

What is a hero? Someone who swans about in a costume, pretending at being more than a broken child, putting on airs, like they're somehow better than those they've sworn against, who are more like them than the propaganda dictates?

I am neither. I am Dreadnaught. I am Taylor.

I'm hungry, horny, and there's five pieces of delicious neo-Nazi jailbait chillin' in my rec room.

 **[]**

"Give it up, Stacey!" Rhonda called over, waving the half-pint of Jack she'd lifted from one of Hookwolf's bars; well, it was a half-pint now. Damn, this stuff was good, if a bit on the strong side. Courtney could keep her Smirnoff Ices; shoulda called that shit Pussy Juice or something, "Door's got a good lock on it, yer not gonna get in."

The blond huffed and turned around, her big tits jiggling in her tank; lucky bitch, "Well if you know so much about fucking locks, why don't you come over here and do it?"

"Innuendo, Stacey," her twin, Nancy (imaginative, her parents weren't), piped up from where she was rolling another blunt; next to the smaller-chested blonde, Yvonne was looking up at the awesome blue icicle lights with bloodshot eyes and a stoned expression, giggling to herself once in a while. Lightweight. Nice _meaty_ thighs though.

Meanwhile, Courtney, the token brunette, was trying to get the jukebox working again; the thing had lights, and they'd gotten it to play Nine Inch Nails' Closer a couple minutes ago, so it shouldn't be long before the thing either worked or they'd resort to their phones for tunes. Seriously, this was one bitchin' clubhouse some bum put together! "And Rhonda's too fuckin' drunk to pick locks right now, ain't'cha bitch?"

That brought Rhonda out of her buzz, "Hey, I ain't fuckin' drunk, you back-alley slag! I'm buzzed. Drunks puke, buzzed gets you _boys_." drunken chuckles and high giggles tided them over until Stacey, defeated by a tumbler lock, plopped herself with a pout next to the blonde Shaker, the conversation turning to "who was the hottest hottie in the Bay" for the umpteenth time. Like they didn't do this song and dance enough at school.

Rhonda tuned them out and took the opportunity to focus on her bottle and admire Stacey's shoulders… _'Deltoids, right? That's what that muscle's called…'_ she could feel the other girl's heat as Stacey took a quick drag off the blunt; not as experienced as her much cooler sister, the true blonde coughed delicately before passing over the shit.

She let her fingers brush against her friend's slightly before taking her toke, blowing the smoke into her Jack bottle for shits and giggles; Court _finally_ got the 'box going, too, just in time to get in on this good shit! More Nails, Only, bangin' track.

What was it the websites said? Longpig? Yeah, that was it, Rhonda thought, pawing at her bag; she needed a cig, before her mouth started watering. People, according to that wiki, tasted like pork, only a little more salty… fuck, should she? Nah.

 _Less concerned, about fitting into the world._

Sticking the full-flavor in her lips, Rhonda watched the blunt go around a couple times before putting her two cents in, intercepting the smoke when Stacey passed it without hitting, "Yeah, Velocity's got it goin' on, but he's like, what, thirty or somethin'?"

 _No it doesn't really matter anymore._

 _None of this, really matters anymore._

"No fuckin' service," Yvonne slurred, looking at her phone's screen, probably trying to get on PHO; scoffing, the redhead picked up the Jack and coke Rhonda'd made for her, and continued, "I dunno, I think he's, like, uh, twenty five?"

 _There is no you, there is only me!_

"Better than that bearded garbage can. Velocity can get it," Courtney grinned suggestively, taking Rhonda's mind off the idea of taking a bite out of Stacey, "Plus, super speed."

The blonde on the couch next to Rhonda coughed lightly and asked, "But, hem, doesn't that mean it'll be over fast?"

"Yeah, like, five-second man," nodded Yvonne.

 _There is no fucking you!_

 _There is only me!_

Taking a big drag, Court blew out a nice big cloud of smoke and drawled, "Bitches. All you are dumb bitches."

Rhonda scoffed, "You got somethin' to say, whore?" She took a sip.

"Yo, check it: he's fast, but if he can move his body that fast, that means..." Courtney put her hands up, like she was gonna lay down some wisdom or… some dumb shit, "Vibrate feature."

They busted up, Rhonda leaning on her neighbor, her cig falling into her lap, "Ah, shit, hahahaha!"

"You nasty, slut!"

"Fuck you! You brought it up!"

"Yo, shut up, I like this part!"

 _Now I'm somewhere I'm not supposed to be!_

 _And I can see some things I really shouldn't see!_

 _And now I know why, yeah now I know why,_

 _Things aren't as pretty… on the inside…_

The chorus came back, and Rhonda grinned, taking the blunt and enjoying Stacey's body heat; it was kinda cold in here, and neither of them were dykes, so it was cool, "Fuckin' shit, Reznor can _get it_ , amirite?"

"Ain't he, like," Yvonne frowned, looking _real_ fucked up now, "a… fuck, I can't think shit right now."

Nancy smiled, leaning back on their couch, "You'd still let him fuck you. Like an animal."

Snickers and laughter were had, and Rhonda went to pass the half-gone blunt back over to a blurry-but-somehow-glowing Courtney; damn, coming to this place was a good idea. Sure, most of this warehouse was kinda spooky, with those weird black waves all over the place, but there were plenty of places to hang out.

Her uncle didn't know what the fuck he was talkin' about; there weren't any bums in here. No one was-

A pale hand plucked the half-finished blunt from her fingers before Court could take it, shocking Rhonda right the fuck out of her buzz; from the gasps and squeaks of her friends, they were just as surprised and shocked.

The person the hand was connected to, Rhonda saw, was really tall, dressed like the world's greatest Goth slut, long hair, and with a pair of blue-lensed sunglasses hiding their eyes. A stylized capital 'D' decorated their tank top, she was smiling at all the girls in the room, and _damn_ those tits were _perfect!_

A memory worked its way through her stoned brain, but not before Nancy squeaked out, "D-D-Dreadnaught?"

The woman nodded, "Sup, bitches," and they took a _huge_ drag off the blunt; Rhonda watched in awe as the killer of the Butcher murdered the stogie in _one hit_ , right down to the nub… and _held it in_ , while _talking_ , "Damn, that's some good shit. Sorry," she added to Nancy, "but you girls are lookin' pretty baked already, and I just woke up." And she smiled, still holding her hit in. Fuck.

Rhonda got the implication first, and laughed weakly, "Uh, shit, sorry Dreadnaught. Didn't know anyone lived here." She shifted a little closer to Stacey and tried to keep her power ready, just in case she had to make a quick getaway. Not that would probably fucking _work._ Goddamn cellphones. She couldn't even call for backup.

The jukebox clicked, and started playing another song, a slower one. Rob Zombie, Pussy Liquor. Lap dance song.

Dreadnaught laughed, _still not exhaling the smoke she'd toked!_ Fuck, what a bullshit bitch! "Nah, it's cool. You girls didn't break anything, and you got the box working again," the dark cape giggled, a weird sound…

And _exhaled_. The cloud of smoke that came out was tinted silver, and was the prettiest goddamn thing Rhonda'd ever seen.

 _One, two, three, who should I kill?_

 _Every motherfucker, runnin' up the hill._

"I think I'll reward you for that," someone said teasingly through Rhonda's darkening vision; wait, was she passing out?! She… hadn't had… that much…

 _One, two, three, what should I do?_

 _I get fucked up, and fuck up a you._

Rhonda's last sensation was of collapsing onto Stacey's lap, Yvonne and Nancy collapsing across her, Courtney looking like she'd tried to run, falling face-down on the floor.

 _Pussy Liquor!_

 **[]**

The first sight Rhonda had, on waking up, was that of her naked legs.

That realization forced the girl to wake the fuck up; it was then she found she couldn't scream – duct tape – and her hands were bound above her head, keeping her toes from touching the floor. She was also completely naked.

Looking at the restraints holding her wrists didn't help; for some reason, they weren't bound _to_ her wrists, but holding her limbs in some sort of invisible field. Tinker-tech, the now sober teen realized in horror; it had to be.

Examining her horror movie-like surroundings – the room she was in had white-tiled walls and floors, with _drains_ – revealed that Rhonda wasn't alone.

All four of her friends were lying naked on the ground, their hands bound at the forearms with black strips of cloth, and their feet, nearly up to their calves, bound in the same material. They were all unconscious, but then Rhonda, who was becoming more and more terrified with each passing second, noticed something else about them.

While all four were breathing, that breathing was a little off. Their white skin was redder than normal, and some kind of oil or shiny liquid had been smeared all over them. All four had tape on their mouths too, and were blindfolded.

As Rhonda watched in confusion – and not a little of the _hunger_ she always tried to deny – Yvonne whimpered into her gag; her pelvis thrusted and… and her exposed vagina leaked a little fluid. The redhead twitched a few more times before going back to breathing hard; a few seconds later, Nancy did the exact same thing.

 _'What the fuck?!'_ had Dreadnaught given them to some pervert Tinker to play with?!

"Oh good," came the chilling voice of that very cape, from behind Rhonda, "You're awake."

Silently, they stepped into view, Rhonda trying her hardest to glare at the killer of the Teeth.

A little difficult, as their pale body was equally naked, save a pair of sunglasses.

Dreadnaught smiled and leaned forward, putting her face right in front of Rhonda, "So nice to meet one of Kaiser's little pawns at last," the curvy woman grinned, her teeth _black and oily_ , "And one who has such abhorrent fantasies, too. Such a small world, isn't it?"

Rhonda knew it was hopeless, with the other cape wearing no clothes, but she tried kicking Dreadnaught anyway; her legs didn't move an inch. Fucking Tinkers.

And how the _fuck_ did Dreadnaught know who she was? No, it was a bluff, had to-

"Rune," purred the dark murderer; Rhonda kept her face carefully blank, but Dreadnaught just kept cooing at her, "Don't insult my abilities. I know who you are and who you work for. I know your uncle trained you before you joined the Empire… and I know you fantasize about eating Stacey at least twice a day."

The teen in question didn't reply, just kept glaring in false confusion at the Brute… who probably wasn't completely sane. How the hell did she know-

"Because I can hear your thoughts."

A chill ran down Rhonda's spine, one that was replaced by Dreadnaught's hand cupping her face; the murderous cape's skin was _cold_ as she continued softly, musingly, "I can hear what you think, I can see how you feel, I can _taste_ your desires," a chuckle left Dreadnaught's perfect lips as she ran a finger over Rhonda's taped mouth, disgusting the teen, "you can't hide anything from me, dear Rune, Rhonda, Sabrina the Teenage Nazi. I know that you're fascinated by dead bodies. I know you wonder how they taste-"

Rhonda gulped reflexively as a finger traced her jaw, ran over her throat.

"You lick your own skin, wondering if everyone tastes like that-"

The finger ran over her sternum, traced the outer edges of her breasts; Rhonda whimpered.

"You dream about flesh on your tongue, blood running over your lips, muscles popping between your teeth as you _chew-_ "

A cold, clammy palm was pressed against Rhonda's navel as her breathing began picking up, stroking her belly as the words battering against her ears started to _excite_ the teenaged cape.

"-and I know how empty you feel inside, how the hunger _gnaws_ at your stomach, every day that passes where you don't _indulge_ ," Rhonda's eyes came back into focus as Dreadnaught leaned in and kissed her nose; her breath smelled like fresh blood and cooking beef as the dark being whispered to her, "Would you like that to end, Rhonda?"

She shook her head. She wasn't a cannibal! And the bitch in front of her wouldn't make her one! She wasn't about to eat her friends!

Rhonda would've said these things, tried to, but the gag kept anything but muffled nonsense from escaping.

Dreadnaught seemed to understand, however, and backed off with a slightly disappointed expression, "Huh. Well, that's too bad," she shrugged, making those big, blue-nippled tits shift a little, while Rhonda started to feel her fear build again, "I hoped you'd just join me and cause some constructive havoc without having to resort to this, but…"

And the dark murderer turned to look at Rhonda's friends, humming, "Now, which one should I eat?"

 _'…oh fuck. She's a cannibal. Oh fuck. I… I can't let her kill them!'_

"Kill them?" Dreadnaught looked back at Rhonda, an expression of humored surprise on her face, "I'm not gonna kill them. I'm just going to eat a little of them, and keep them as cattle and pleasure slaves!"

…what.

"See," explained Dreadnaught while beginning to pace, Rhonda wondering just how insane this bitch was, "Living like this gets boring. I go and find something to eat, kill it, eat it, and then it's back to doing not much of anything; sure, I can Tinker or practice using the powers I've eaten," she started ticking off on her fingers, Rhonda beginning to feel an existential fear that was usually reserved for the Faerie Queen, "Bakuda, Hemmorhagia, Ballistic – one of the Travelers, Simurgh bomb from the Madison attack – Noelle – same team – and I think about eight of the Butcher's powers…

"But, at the end of the day," Dreadnaught turned a grin on a now _really scared_ Rhonda, "I think I'd much prefer having a nice, warm body to cuddle and play with… or," the woman's groin bulged and shifted, "to wrap their wet cunt around whatever cock I feel like having."

What grew from Dreadnaught's groin wasn't human or natural; there were studs all up and down its length, it was flared at the tip like a horse, but it wasn't so thick that Rhonda – who was trying not to stare but _goddamn_ – felt it would hurt her. It _looked_ thin enough for her to take. She wasn't a virgin by a long shot, but…

But then Dreadnaught turned to her friends, "Now let's see, who should I fuck and nibble on first? Hmm, oh, how about Stacey here?"

As if on cue, the girl whimpered and came, her big breasts heaving with arousal, pink nipples hard; Dreadnaught made those breasts bounce as she dragged the blonde away from her fellows and turned her onto her front.

All the while, Rhonda screamed denial and hate into her gag; the fucking bitch was going to _rape them?!_ She wasn't a hero, like everyone was saying! She was a _monster!_

Dreadnaught looked up at Rhonda, her expression flat, "What? You don't want to join me, there's four delicious pieces of jailbait that I've had marinating in aphrodisiac for the past two hours right here, and I'm horny. So fuck you and your opinion, I'm going to fuck this bitch and make her my slave."

And, without waiting for a response, Dreadnaught lifted Stacey's hips and thrusted her dick into the teen's unresisting pussy with a wet squelch. The blonde girl didn't react beyond a slight moan into her gag and twitching her hips, looking like she was trying to grind on the dark cape; said demon groaned happily and smiled, pushing her length deeper into the teen, eliciting more moans and twitches.

"Fuck, she's nice and warm, mmmm~," hummed Dreadnaught in satisfaction while Rhonda stared in total horror, tears of helplessness starting to flow; the monster looked at the blonde Shaker and smiled, "Still unconscious, but that's not a problem; big tits here is still subconsciously aware of her surroundings.

"In fact," Dreadnaught paused to pull back and thrust firmly into Rhonda's friend, the cape grunting while the knocked-out teen moaned and twitched in pleasure, " _Fuck_ she's got a nice pussy… Anyway, once she wakes up, she'll be completely mine; no more free will, just a big tittied slut for me to do with as I please… unless…"

And the monster looked right at Rhonda with an expectant expression, "…you take a bite out of her. Do that, and she'll be your slave instead. Might want to hurry though, _mmf~,_ " Dreadnaught started raping her friend again, "Her pussy's so good, I might just enslave her anyway; bright side, you have three more chances… before I do the same to you, anyway. You or them, Rhonda. Up to you… _damn this bitch is tight_."

Her mind completely flooded with panic, fear and disgust, Rhonda didn't know what to do; she was trapped, unable to use her power, and her only chance at freedom… was to become a cannibal, to _eat her friends_. It was that, or let her friends get raped, before getting raped _herself_ , turned into an unthinking slave to a monster.

The wet slapping, squelching, and pleased groans of Dreadnaught fucking Stacey's cumming pussy wasn't helping her think.

Around and around Rhonda's thoughts went, trying to find some solution to getting out of this trap, freeing her friends, and getting the Empire to kill this monster.

She… couldn't think of a way to win. Dreadnaught _killed the Butcher_ , wiped out their capes.

There was no way to win…

Right as Rhonda came to this realization, Dreadnaught pulled Stacey's hair back and removed the girl's gag with a smile, asking, "Enjoying yourself, my new slutty pet?"

"YES~! IT'S SO GOOD~!" screamed Stacey in honest joy, shocking Rhonda to her core as Stacey started _fucking herself on Dreadnaught's length_ , "Please, my dread mistress~, use my body morrre!"

Said master chuckled and grabbed one of Stacey's tits, pulling the panting teen further back, "Well, if you're offering…"

And Dreadnaught _bit into Stacey's shoulder_ , the very same shoulder Rhonda had wanted to bite earlier.

The blonde Shaker's mind blanked at the sight of blood running down Stacey's arm, the pleasure-filled scream that left her bound friend's lips –

"YES! YES! EAT ME! I LOVE IT!"

– and the sight of Dreadnaught peeling a strip of flesh and muscle from the girl's shoulder, chewing on it with a pleased hum of her own, exposing more _bleeding, red meat_ to Rhonda's eyes. All through the action, Rhonda's friend never stopped shaking her hips or sliding up and down on Dreadnaught; the Nazi cape was pretty sure Stacey had climaxed right when the flesh left her body.

Stacey… liked being eaten?

"Oh, it looks like our audience is entranced," cooed Dreadnaught after she swallowed, the dark cape content to let Stacey fuck her as she grinned at Rhonda's numb expression, her dead and defeated eyes, "How about it, Stacey? Do you want Rhonda to have a bite too? She looks hungry~."

"Uh-huh! Uh-huh!" blindly nodded Rhonda's… former friend, a giddy smile on the slave's face as she came on her mistress' dick again, "More! Please eat more of me I waaant it~! Please take a bite, Ronny! Please!"

Dreadnaught laughed, and looked at Rhonda, "Well, Rhonda? Hungry?"

Rhonda, Rune, was beaten.

She couldn't deny it anymore.

Not with _fresh flesh_ right in front of her, being offered to her.

She was _starving_.

Rhonda nodded.

Dreadnaught let her down, removed her gag.

She walked over to the slave, her mouth watering, she was so hungry.

Rhonda's mistress held the happily submissive slave still.

Rhonda licked the wound. Salty, with a metallic tinge.

 _She loved it_.

Her first bite was of tough meat, accompanied by the pleased scream of the slave… and…

Dreadnaught, Rhonda's new mistress, her leader, patted the blonde cape on the head as Stacey's deltoid muscles _melted_ ~ in her mouth, the blonde Shaker humming at the delicious taste of warm flesh on her tongue, the soft crunch of tough muscle between her teeth, the tasty blood and sinew warming her stomach…

Rune went for another bite.

"Good girl."

 **[]**

"So you're good," asked Rhonda seriously a few days later, "No scarring, it doesn't hurt?"

"Nah, it's fine. Doesn't hurt at all, really," Stacey, their first slave, happily shook her head, the tag on the collar she was wearing clinking with the movement, "It all regenerates within an hour after you and mistress finish eating, and she's given us work to do, so we'll all be fine while you two go do important things."

"Yeah, Ronny, we're good," Yvonne piped up from the console she and Nancy were building, their own slave collars nice and shiny; Rhonda knew Nancy tasted a little like Stacey, but Yvonne's flesh was softer than the twins', "You and mistress go disturb the peace, we'll keep getting ready for the show," slave Nancy nodded, her face happy.

Not that the feelings of cattle mattered to Rune… no, she wasn't Rune anymore. She was Artisan.

But her robes were more or less the same, except she now wore a half-mask that covered her mouth and nose – fumes and smoke were a danger around Tinkers – and usually went barefoot nowadays; Taylor insisted, as Rhonda and she had an important project coming up, after the powers testing today, and being barefoot helped her practice.

Still, she didn't care about the four bitches; they were cattle for Rhonda's meals and fuck-puppets for Taylor. Sure, they could follow Dreadnaught's orders, help her build some basic tech, but beyond that? Meaty sluts.

So she shrugged, "Whatever, just making sure you're all settled," she turned away as the slaves started singing Ronnie's praises, much to her eye-rolling tiredness, "And make sure Court doesn't try to go downstairs again! Dreadnaught hasn't finished clearing it out, and we're not regrowing her legs again!"

"I won't!" came that slave's voice from Dreadnaught's laboratory, just before the light and sound of a welding torch came through the open door.

Nodding, Artisan hopped onto one of her pre-made carbon fiber platforms and rode it to the Foundry's exit, where Dreadnaught was waiting with a larger, specially-made Tinker-tech surface, and the kickass speaker system the dark avenger built yesterday.

It was time for the Undying to make their debut.

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 **Well… this took some time.**

 **I'll admit, this was half-written for months – I kept trying to figure out how to get past the Cauldron bit – but lately, inspiration struck while writing and reading on Questionable Questing. So everyone gets a new chapter of deeply dark lewd zombie goodness!**

 **Next time: Awakening**


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